OpenKnot Round 9 features secondary structures designed by players to create compact, pseudoknotted RNA using 240 bases. GenAI teams also will be testing whether their methods can perform as well as the expert players at a longer length. Check out the puzzle at: eternagame.org/labs/14343053

Eternacon 12 will be Sunday, July 26, 9am to 2pm PT featuring talks on player pseudoknot design techniques, the Montparnasse algorithm solving the Eterna100, an RNA scaffold for cryo-EM, and results for our pilot Replicase puzzle. #RNAsky Free to register at eternagame.org/eternacon/2026

Eterna's newest puzzle challenges players to design 240-base RNA strands that will fold into compact pseudoknots. The puzzle provides a metric for counting the number of pairs that cross to form large, synthetic pseudoknots. #RNAsky #citsci Check out the puzzle at eternagame.org/labs/14333719

Spotlight on geneticist William Greenleaf and biochemist Rhiju Das: They gathered insights from citizen scientists via a Stanford Medicine-designed video game to help create an affordable RNA sensor for active tuberculosis. stanmed.stanford.edu/molecule-des...

First AI-generated RNA with novel atomically ordered 3D fold! 🧬 The pseudoknotted secondary structure 'Kissing Multiloops' was designed by an Eterna player then solved by 3 GenAI models as confirmed by cryo-EM. ❄️🔬 #RNASky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The first three CASP 17 RNA targets are molecules designed by Eterna players as part of our OpenKnot puzzle series! Another example of how dedicated citizen scientists #citsci can contribute to cutting-edge research. eternagame.org/challenges/1...

Das Lab@rdaslab.bsky.social · 3mo ago

First two targets in #CASP17 are #RNA, and they're designs from the online videogame @eternagame.org. Hope the bots preparing for CASP have been playing Eterna!

This week, learn about the crowdsource RNA design platform, Eterna, and Anthony Stohr's switch work. In the future, how could Eterna be used to tackle to 3D RNA structure problem? Meeting ID: 934 4593 5624 Passcode: 802843 Mailing list: groups.google.com/g/casp-rna-sig

Town Hall - Saturday, March 14, 9am PT eternagame.org/news/14267278 A University of Delaware researcher will be discussing how he applied #RNA switches Eterna reported in a 2022 PNAS paper to a #CRISPR system for conditional gene activation. #citsci Screenshot of the winning switch design:

Eterna players were able to design molecular calculators which could revolutionize global health, low-energy computing, and biosensing - lets talk about why this is exciting! (1/7)

I was amazed when I saw @rachael-kretsch.bsky.social present about this in an @rdaslab.bsky.social meeting. ROOL and GOLLD are stunning (dare I say beautiful) structures. She presented about this for @eternagame.org last year too! Recording available at eternagame.org/eternacon/2025 #RNASky 🧪

RCSB Protein Data Bank@rcsbpdb.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Large and intricate naturally occurring structures composed exclusively of RNA... ROOL! More at Molecule of the Month: pdb101.rcsb.org/motm...

RNA switches designed by @eternagame.org players not only are highly efficient in vitro, they also work in cells! This is so cool! 🧪 @narjournal.bsky.social @markblenner.bsky.social Metabolite-responsive scaffold RNAs for dynamic CRISPR transcriptional regulation: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Metabolite-responsive scaffold RNAs for dynamic CRISPR transcriptional regulation

Abstract. CRISPR activation is a powerful tool to upregulate a vast array of genes in many different contexts. However, there are few dynamic CRISPR transc

academic.oup.com

Introducing gRNAde: our own little "AlphaGo Moment" for RNA design! 🧬🚀 📝: tinyurl.com/gRNAde-paper Unlike proteins, RNA design has long relied on "wisdom of the crowd" (human experts) or the slow crawl of directed evolution — gRNAde changes that! 🧵👇

A new 3-state Replicase challenge has been launched on Eterna and will only be open for two weeks before sequences are collected for experimental testing at the Das Lab. Will Eterna players be able to improve the catalytic activity of the RNA polymerase? eternagame.org/labs/14183416

@eternagame got single RNAs to compute functions like all logic gates, A>B, and A*B/C^2, relevant for tuberculosis detection! Now looking for partners to scale to complex applications. Collab w/ Greenleaf Khatri labs @christianchoe.bsky.social @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social at doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Compact RNA sensors for increasingly complex functions of multiple inputs - Nature Chemistry

Designing single molecules capable of complex sensing functions is challenging. Now, using crowdsourced RNA designs from the online game Eterna, compact single-molecule sensors have been demonstrated ...

doi.org

In addition to the RibonanzaNet server hosted by @rdaslab.bsky.social, RNA structure fans can try the new pseudoknotted prediction model in Eterna's RNet Study collection. The 108 puzzles are a mix of experimentally-validated structures and synthetic fabrications. eternagame.org/collections/...

Not exactly citizen science, but such a fun way to connect people with Nature.

explore.org@explore.org · 11mo ago

Explore.org was featured on the CBS morning show. They did a great job www.cbsnews.com/video/webcam...

Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.

“Why Are We Funding This?”

Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.

americanscientist.org

Celebrate World RNA Day on August 1 with Eterna In the latest Education Corner, learn about Eterna, an online game which models the base pairing and secondary structure of RNA sequences cdn.rcsb.org/rcsb-pd...

EDUCATION CORNER: Interactive RNA Education with the Eterna Game

Eterna is an online game which models the base pairing and secondary structure of RNA sequences.

cdn.rcsb.org

Coming up this weekend, Eternacon will feature presentations about fellow #citsci platform @zooniverse.bsky.social and how participants of both Zooniverse and Eterna have created #machinelearning tools for projects. @noirlabastro.bsky.social Register for free at eternagame.org/eternacon/2025

Meet @frameshifter.org, the new nonprofit program established to steward Eterna's future and advance public engagement in scientific research through games, collective and hybrid intelligence, and human centered design.

Frameshifter@frameshifter.org · last yr.

Introducing: Frameshifter, a new nonprofit program (fiscally sponsored by @superbloom.design ) accelerating discoveries and inclusion in science through public engagement in research.

Eterna players successfully designed antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to bind with specific regions of the intron and restore F8 exon 16 splicing. A big thank you to @ucscscience.bsky.social for collaborating with us on this cutting-edge research! #citizenscience @rdaslab.bsky.social

RNA Society Journal@rnajournal.bsky.social · last yr.

Community science presents an alternative discovery framework for precision ASO drugs. A community voting system facilitates the testing of top designs, followed by experimentation to evaluate and score how well player-designed drugs ameliorated molecular disease phenotypes bit.ly/44u5oTv

Registration for Eterna's annual online conference July 26-27 is open! Come hear from both researchers and players about new approaches to structure-based RNA design and understanding RNA structure. #citsci Full program and free registration at eternagame.org/eternacon/2025

Summer Newsletter Published Highlights training events, the Ligand Expo shutdown; accessing IHM data at RCSB PDB, and more. In the Education Corner, learn about Interactive RNA Education with the Eterna Game. cdn.rcsb.org/rcsb-pd...

RCSB PDB Quartely Newsletter | Summer 25 | Issue 106

In this issue: This issue highlights the new training events, PDB-IHM news, articles describing PDB impact, and more

cdn.rcsb.org

Zooniverse taking the lead in using #machinelearning as a tool for participatory science projects.

Zooniverse@zooniverse.bsky.social · last yr.

We are developing a set of recommendations for AI-engaged projects on the Zooniverse. This includes a series of workshops and surveys to gather input from our community and experts in communications and ethics. Zooniverse participants have an opportunity to get involved! tinyurl.com/aipublicrese...

Looking forward to attending my first Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences this week and delivering a presentation during the Scientific Contributions session on how Eterna players created a large dataset of RNA sequences with pseudoknots for machine learning. 🧪 #CAPS2025

National DNA Day celebrates the completion of the human genome project in 2003 and the discovery of the double helix in 1953. The continuing work of dedicated scientists to learn more about the functioning of genes and RNA in the human body is leading to important advances in medicine.

If you weren't able to attend the workshop, be sure to stop by booth 502 to see our RNA folding game in action. #ASBMB25

Tomorrow morning in room 470! #ASBMB25

Great review of new RNA structure prediction methods!

Nature Portfolio@natureportfolio.nature.com · last yr.

AlphaFold’s highly accurate structural models transformed protein biology. Nature reports on the efforts to create a similar system for RNA and why it’s a tougher nut to crack. #RNAsky 🧪

Our 2024 online conference featured two talks on how innovative Eterna players helped RNA structure researchers improve the preparation of RNA sequences for chemical mapping, particularly formatting the padding and barcodes to reduce primer misfolds and smooth read counts. (Link below⬇️)