VOA常速英语2019--游戏玩家们正在琢磨创造新的蛋白质

Gamers Are Puzzling Out New Proteins

This is a game created by University of Washington medical researchers.It’s called Fold.it. It looks like a complicated 3D puzzle game. Well, that’s because that’s exactly what it is.Fold.it is a free online computer game that anyone can play.“We challenge Fold.it players to design new proteins from scratch, using state-of-the-art software that we use here at the Institute.”Proteins are long chains of amino acids that do all kinds of important things inside the human body.“Proteins are extraordinary molecules¹ they fold into very precise shapes and carry out complicated functions. Natural proteins have evolved to do this over billions and billions of years.”But when proteins fold in the wrong way that can lead to everything from allergies² to cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease.

这是华盛顿大学医学研究人员创造的一个游戏。名字叫Fold.it。它看起来像一个复杂的三维益游戏。好吧，那是因为它本来就是。Fold.it是一款任何人都可以玩的免费网络游戏。我们向Fold.it玩家提出挑战，让他们从头开始设计新的蛋白质，使用我们在研究所使用的最先进的软件。”蛋白质是氨基酸的长链，在人体内起着各种重要作用。“蛋白质是非常特殊的分子，它们折叠成非常精确的形状，并完成复杂的功能。经过数十亿年的进化，自然蛋白质已经进化并实现这些功能。”但是，当蛋白质以错误的方式折叠时，会导致从过敏到囊性纤维化和泰-萨克斯病等各种疾病。

So to fight diseases such as these, researchers like University of Washington’s Brian Koepnick need to figure out how proteins are supposed to fold and that can stump³ even a supercomputer.“Protein design is a very expansive challenge. There are innumerable possibilities for design proteins and our algorithms can only explore a very very small part of that space.”“And that’s where Fold.it comes in.Gamers are asked to puzzle out how to fold proteins together to make them work correctly. The better the fold, the higher the score. Longtime players like Susan Kleinfelter can be just as good at folding proteins as the computer. “I keep a list of all the proteins that I design as I’d like to try and do different ones each time and not do the same ones over and over.But yeah every time you lose you’ll come about a folded protein that passed some test. I didn’t really go, I said: It’s never mind. It’s never mind. It’s never mind.”Koepnick says players have gotten so good.Researchers are now asking the estimated 75,000 players to create designer proteins that could treat diseases like HIV.“Right now Fold.it players are working on proteins that could be used for to treat cancer or infectious disease or a whole host of other medical and materials applications.If you’re interested in playing simply type fold dot it in your browsers⁴ and download the game.

因此，为了对抗这些疾病，像华盛顿大学的Brian Koepnick这样的研究人员需要弄清楚蛋白质是如何折叠的，即使是一台超级计算机也会被难倒。“蛋白质设计是一个非常广泛的挑战。设计蛋白质有无数的可能性，我们的算法只能探索该空间非常小的一部分。”这就到了Fold.it起作用的时候了。游戏玩家需要弄清楚如何将蛋白质折叠在一起，使它们正确运转。折叠得越好，分数就越高。像Susan Kleinfelter这样的长期玩家和电脑一样擅长折叠蛋白质。“我留了一份清单，上面列出了我设计的所有蛋白质，我想尝试每次都做不同的蛋白质，而不是一遍又一遍地做相同的蛋白质。但，是的，每次你输了，你都会得到一种通过某些测试的折叠蛋白质。我并不是非常开心，我说：没关系。没关系。没关系。”Koepnick说玩家已经玩得很好了。研究人员现在要求大约7.5万名玩家创造设计出能治疗像艾滋病等疾病的蛋白质。“现在，Fold.it玩家正在研究可用于治疗癌症或传染病的蛋白质，或大量其他医学和材料的应用。”如果你对游戏感兴趣，只需在浏览器中输入fold.it，然后下载游戏。

1 molecules   

分子( molecule的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The structure of molecules can be seen under an electron microscope. 分子的结构可在电子显微镜下观察到。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules. 在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

2 allergies   

n.[医]过敏症；[口]厌恶，反感；（对食物、花粉、虫咬等的）过敏症( allergy的名词复数 )；变态反应，变应性

参考例句：

• Food allergies can result in an enormous variety of different symptoms. 食物过敏会引发很多不同的症状。 来自辞典例句
• Let us, however, examine one of the most common allergies; hayfever. 现在让我们来看看最常见的变态反应的一种--枯草热。 来自辞典例句

3 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

4 browsers   

浏览器

参考例句：

• Three-layer architecture is a model made up of browser, web server and background database server. 这种体系结构是由Browser、Web Server、Database Server组成的浏览器／Web服务器／后台数据库服务器三层模型。 来自互联网
• Another excellent approach is to abandon the browser entirely and, instead, create a non-browser-based, Internet-enabled application. 另一个非常好的方法是干脆放弃浏览器，取而代之，创建一个不基于浏览器，但却是基于互联网的应用。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓