Phylo: an online game that helps genetic research

A few days ago, the official launch of the new Internet game Phylo took place. This is a project in which scientists are trying to use the natural abilities of the players' brain to recognize patterns and solve puzzles (computers are still very bad at coping with this). Puzzles in the form of a game will help determine the origin of genetic diseases.



Phylo is not the first game of this kind. It stands on the shoulders of crowdsourcing games such as Foldit (protein coagulation) and Galaxy Zoo (sorting of galaxies).

Phylo players move colored squares that represent four types of nucleotides in DNA in order to find the best order of their arrangement in terms of the similarity of the DNA of different animals. These similar sections of DNA are called promoters and are the launching pad for some important transcription. Search for the same promoters in humans and other animals helps to find the roots of various genetic diseases.
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Unlike Foldit or Galaxy Zoo, the science in the game Phylo is very well hidden and the game looks exactly like a regular puzzle, with bright squares and nice music. This is not a minus, but an absolute advantage of the game. This is exactly what scientific projects need to be done in order to take part in them as many players as possible far from science could. The game is designed for those who would otherwise play in Farmville, says Phylo lead developer Jerome Valdispul (Jerome Waldispuhl) from McGill University in Montreal.

The development team hopes to release versions of the game for smartphones and tablets, and someday embed it on social networks like Facebook. The game already has its own page there.