Dizeez: An Online Game for Human Gene-Disease Annotation

Structured gene annotations are a foundation upon which many bioinformatics and statistical analyses are built. However the structured annotations available in public databases are a sparse representation of biological knowledge as a whole. The rate of biomedical data generation is such that centralized biocuration efforts struggle to keep up. New models for gene annotation need to be explored that expand the pace at which we are able to structure biomedical knowledge. Recently, online games have emerged as an effective way to recruit, engage and organize large numbers of volunteers to help address difficult biological challenges. For example, games have been successfully developed for protein folding (Foldit), multiple sequence alignment (Phylo) and RNA structure design (EteRNA). Here we present Dizeez, a simple online game built with the purpose of structuring knowledge of gene-disease associations. Preliminary results from game play online and at scientific conferences suggest that Dizeez is producing valid gene-disease annotations not yet present in any public database. These early results provide a basic proof of principle that online games can be successfully applied to the challenge of gene annotation. Dizeez is available at http://genegames.org.