“What excites me is trying to create next-generation scientific discovery games that include other experimental modalities,” Das said. “You could imagine almost every other aspect of foundational biological research, such as electron microscopy of molecules or real-time interaction with cells, becoming part of a game and leading to the invention of new medicines.”
Scientific discovery games that are closely intertwined with laboratory experiments could serve the dual purpose of familiarizing people with what goes on in a lab while also getting ideas from a more diverse group of people.
“The amount of creativity out there is so much larger than what the traditional scientific community has on its own,” Riedel-Kruse said. “Large numbers of people could make tremendous intellectual contributions just through sheer scale. Additionally, we have examples of a one-in-a-thousand or one-in-a-million person outside the university who finds something the rest of us missed.”
Given how scientific discovery games are growing and evolving, Das and Riedel-Kruse are eager to push them further. They want playing and creating these games to be easier so more people can contribute to them. Since most of these games so far are some kind of puzzle, they see potential for expanding into other genres of video and computer games.
“There are games where you get together in teams and you explore worlds and carry out battles and there are real-time strategy games, like StarCraft,” Das said. “There are entire genres that haven’t yet been tapped into for science discovery games.”
These researchers also point out the need for research not just through the scientific discovery games but about these projects themselves. There are no studies yet on how these games affect and educate players, the best ways to design them and the ethics of producing medical treatments for real people based on the creativity of the crowd.
Whatever direction they take next, Das and Riedel-Kruse aim to achieve one goal above all others: the evolution of games as a potentially powerful avenue for serious science.
Some current scientific discovery games
Eterna: an online game in which players design RNA molecules for medicine that are actually tested experimentally at Stanford.
Foldit: the pioneering desktop game for modeling the 3D structures of proteins
Zooniverse: a collection of ongoing and archived online citizen science projects, including Galaxy Zoo (galaxy classification) and Whale FM (organization of orca and pilot whale calls)
NOVA Labs: educational online SDGs run by PBS’s NOVA
Phylo: pattern-recognition puzzles that can help genetic disease research
EyeWire: a 3D puzzle game for mapping neurons
Right, Emma Lundberg; visiting associate professor of genetics, Stanford
Project Discovery: a mini-game in the massive multi-player computer game EVE online that supports different research projects. Previously, Emma Lundberg, a visiting associate professor of genetics at Stanford, led a Project Discovery team that aimed to improve understand of proteins’ locations.
Das and Riedel-Kruse are both members of Stanford Bio-X.
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