A mobile game developed in Dundee could have “a massive impact” in the battle against cancer.
The smartphone game, Play to Cure: Genes in Space, has created hundreds of “citizen scientists” across the world who help analyse gene data while they play.
Cancer Research scientists must decode vast amounts of this type of DNA data to discover cancer-causing genetic faults in order to develop new targeted treatments for patients.
But the human eye is needed to spot patterns in the data and it would take scientists years to do this manually.
By playing the game, however “citizen scientists” have in one month analysed DNA data that typically would have taken experts six months.
Read the full, original story: Genes in Space has ‘citizen scientists’ joining forces for the game of life
