Bioinformatics/Cheminformatics/Biology Games

Question

[Pawel Szczesny]

I know FoldIt very well and I use it for teaching (as a next step after modelling - its interface is much more suitable to explain nuances of model refinement than any other free tools). I'm aware of couple of others such as Phylo or EteRNA. The question is what other bioinformatics/cheminformatics/biology games are out there? I'm looking for games that can be used to explain basic biological and algorithmic concepts in the course of teaching bioinformatics and systems biology to undergraduates.

Citizen science aspect (like in FoldIt) isn't neccesary, but of course it would be nice to have it.

Answer 1

[Mary]

I got sucked into this one for way too long at one point: http://www.nebcutitout.com/ But I don't know if it's lighter than you want. NEB Cut It Out, you have to generate sequences that match restriction site cutter enzymes in your hand.

EDIT: Andrew Su has posts on games. I just remembered Dizeez, more here: http://sulab.org/2012/03/dizeez-future-of-genetic-medicine-v/ But you might look at his other posts on games too.

[Andrew Su]

Just wanted to point out that http://genegames.org will be the portal for all our biology-oriented games moving forward. Thanks for the plug!

Answer 2

[Pierre Lindenbaum]

in my bookmarks:

• "Games with a scientific purpose" http://genomebiology.com/2011/12/12/135
• "Played by humans, scored by nature, online game helps unravel secrets of RNA" http://phys.org/news/2011-01-humans-scored-nature-online-game.html
• "Phylo" http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca/eng/play.html

Answer 3

[Steve Moss]

I find the bioinformatics problems at ROSALIND http://rosalind.info to be pretty helpful in teaching/learning the algorthmic concepts central to bioinformatics. Programming knowledge is required, but I think learning Python for example, whilst playing these will help hone bioinformatic and development skills together :)

Answer 4

[Khader Shameer]

This looks amazing:

A 3D Biology Video Game for the Kinect at Kickstarter

Answer 5

[Will]

Phylo is another one: http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca/js/about.html ... It lets/teaches users to do multiple sequence alignments. I'm not sure if its made enough press or has enough users to make any real discoveries though.

[Manu Prestat]

Too bad, I wanted to try to beat muscle, but the game does not work! ,-)

Answer 6

[Obi Griffith]

Three new games under development at Scripps:

1. Combo - Players choose genes in a "card game" which can then be used to find consistent gene patterns in the data that could serve as predictors for particular phenotypes (e.g., breast cancer relapse).
2. Dizeez - Players attempt to link a given gene to the correct disease in a quiz-style game.
3. GenESP - Two players partner up, enter genes related to a given disease and get points for correctly guessing/matching their partner's choice.

[Andrew Su]

Just wanted to point out that http://genegames.org will be the portal for all our biology-oriented games moving forward. Thanks for the plug!

Answer 7

[Mary]

I just remembered this other one--I also got sucked into this one way too long once: Breeder. But I bred a damn good plant.

Het Kwekersspel The Plant Breeding Game Das Züchter Spiel Juego de mejorado

http://www.plantbreeding.wur.nl/NL/software_kwekersspel.html