But it has inspired other schemes, including a Stanford University study of how protein chains fold in on themselves and a global weather-forecasting model at the Rutherford Appleton Lab in Britain.

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Researchers have not yet chosen which protein they will fold when Blue Gene is finished a few years down the road, but Horn said that simple proteins will be tested before then.

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Foldit, an online video game, allows nontechnical, nonbiologist players to visually "fold" protein structures, while computers calculate the chemical interactions corresponding to each arrangement.

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The issue here, with all fusion protein, is many fold.

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Blue Gene could simulate heating a protein, to see how stable it is, or could apply random mutations to a protein, to see how its ability to fold is affected.

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In just three weeks this fall, thousands of people playing the free downloadable game helped map the structure of an enzyme that could fight HIV and AIDS. Scientists at the University of Washington created Fold-it to turn research about protein folding into a game, dishing up puzzles made up of spirals and clumps that represent amino acids.

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