Millions of video game fans transformed themselves, for a few moments, into scientists and helped to better understand the intestinal microbiome, as part of a project led by a researcher from McGill University.
Published at 12:39 p.m.
Jean-Benoit Legault
The Canadian Press
The mini-game Borderlands Sciencewhich is similar to the legendary Tetrishad been integrated into Borderlands 3a first-person shooter game developed by Gearbox.
By grouping similar elements together, participants in this citizen science initiative helped shed light on the evolutionary relationships of more than a million types of bacteria living in the gut and significantly refine the estimation of the relationships between these microbes .
“Gamers helped us improve the analysis of DNA fragments from millions of microbes,” explained the study’s lead author, Professor Jérôme Waldispühl of the School of Computer Science at McGill University. We wanted to compare these fragments to understand the evolution of the relationship between species. »
Humans, it was argued, were able to tackle problems that even the most successful known computer algorithms had failed to solve.
Typically, Professor Waldispühl detailed, a human or a team of humans will review the results generated by artificial intelligence to correct errors that inevitably arise. But in this case, the amount of data to analyze was so colossal that we chose to cut it into fragments which were then presented to the players in the form of a puzzle.
Players then had to put together the fragments that they thought were most similar. The researchers then checked whether a consensus emerged among the participants regarding the similarities observed.
“For example, if 80 out of 100 players identified the same pattern, for us that is a good indication that it is potentially something interesting,” explained Professor Waldispühl.
Waiting
Borderlands Science was presented to players as an arcade that they could access during a break during gameplay, such as while their character was being healed or their friends were away on a mission.
A three-minute video hosted by actress Mayim Bialik showed them that they were about to contribute to a scientific project.
The actress explains that the data generated will be offered to the entire scientific community and that the “research could directly lead to a universal catalog of all known microbes, which could lead to new breakthroughs in the fields of food, medicine and physical exercise.
Players’ participation also earned them “currency” which they could then spend to improve their character.
“I don’t have data to validate that, but my feeling is that it reinforced the players’ desire to participate […] because the time spent playing was going to be used to do good things,” said Professor Waldispühl.
The data that this made it possible to collect represents “an exponential increase” compared to that previously collected on the microbiome, we assure. In half a day, said Professor Waldispühl, the players of Borderlands Science collected five times more data on microbial DNA sequences than participants in a previous game had done in ten years, Phylo.
The results of the project, it was explained in a press release, “will considerably enrich knowledge of the microbiome and will make it possible to improve the artificial intelligence programs used in this field”.
The analysis of the intestinal microbiome and its links with different facets of health is a booming subject whose secrets we are only just beginning to unlock. In recent years, researchers have discovered potential associations between the microbiome and disorders as diverse as Alzheimer’s disease, eye health and various inflammatory diseases.
Evolution provides valuable information about the function of organisms, the researchers explained. By charting the genealogy of microorganisms, we can better understand the role they play in the body and the environment, they say.
In addition to the collaboration with Gearbox and Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS), a Swiss computing company that builds bridges between science and video games, the project benefited from the expertise and genomic material of the Microsetta Initiative , led by Rob Knight, professor in the departments of pediatrics, biological engineering and computer science and engineering at the University of California, San Diego.
“There are plenty of people who have not studied science because they were told, when they were little, that it was too complicated,” lamented Professor Waldispühl. They have been separated from science. »
But because we go to them and present to them the science in what they do every day, he continued, they will not put up a mental barrier to say that it is too complicated and they will find themselves engaged in science without realizing it, and it will create an emotion in them.
“They will realize that it is not that complicated, that in fact it can be fun and they will like it,” said the researcher. For my part, I hope, in any case, that it can help restore the general public’s confidence in science. »
The idea of integrating DNA analysis into a mainstream commercial video game came from Attila Szantner, who is an associate professor at the School of Computer Science at McGill University and the CEO and co-founder of MMOS.
The findings of this study were published by the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology.
