PIPER2/11 Issue 2 Q&A WITH A DRIEN T REUILLE O N E TE RNA: A G A ME S C O RED B Y N ATURE Fitting Fitness In 3 P AYIN G I T F O RWA RD : A LUMNI N A ME H I S T O RY F ELL O W S HI P IN T A RR ’ S H O N O R 4 CMU P O LICE E A RN R E - A CCREDITATI O N 12 R E S E A RCHER S , W AT so N F E ATURED O N NOVA Reefbot Lets Kids Explore Giant Aquarium CMU Technology Eventually Could Be Used To Study Deep Coral Reefs n Byron Spice The two-story Open Oceans tank at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium contains 100,000 gallons of salt water, 30 species Y KEN ANDREYO B of sea life and one submersible robot, or Reefbot, named CLEO. PHOTO Young visitors to the exhibit use a control station to remotely pilot CLEO N I SHA S HUKLA , A SYSTE M S SC I ENT I ST FOR THE I NST I TUTE FOR C O M PLEX E NG I NEERED S YSTE M S , I S ONE OF around the tank and use its high-definition THE M ANY FACULTY AND STAFF W HO PART I C I PATE I N GROUP F I TNESS CLASSES OFFERED BY THE D EPART M ENT OF video camera to track fish and snap photos. A THLET I CS . A BOVE , S HUKLA STR I KES A W ARR I OR I I POSE I N AN AFTERNOON YOGA CLASS . R EAD M ORE ABOUT By comparing the images from CLEO HO W PEOPLE ARE EXERC I S I NG HEALTH I ER OPT I ONS ON PAGE 1 0 . with reference photos, visitors can identify the type of fish. In the process, the young explorers are helping researchers at the Robotics Institute develop software that Interactions a New Focus of Diversity Initiative might someday be used by scientists to n Bruce Gerson — President Cohon writes that “a “It is taking the time to learn and un- automatically detect, classify and count meaningful engagement goes beyond derstand, to invest a little of yourself, in fish in natural habitats. Let the diverse converse. a quick greeting, but rather, it is a order to grow as a person,” Cohon says. Reefbot is a joint project of the zoo While efforts are still under way conversation with someone from a dif- In early December 2010, the DAC and the Robotics Institute, with funding to increase minority representation ferent country, culture, race, ethnicity, hosted a retreat to discuss how to create through Spark, a program of The Sprout among students, faculty and staff and religion, gender, etc., where you learn and support meaningful interaction, pri- Fund, a nonprofit organization that sup- to promote diversity in all respects, a something you didn’t know, maybe marily among the undergraduate student ports innovative ideas and grassroots com- new social focus has emerged to en- question your own long-held beliefs population. The retreat was attended by munity projects in Pittsburgh. gage each other in meaningful ways. or understanding about a culture or 80 individuals, including deans, faculty, Ashley Kidd, an aquarist at the zoo, The “Guiding Principle for University religion. C ONT I NUED ON PAGE SEVEN developed the idea and Justine Kasznica, Culture,” authored last year by the a local business consultant for high-tech Diversity Advisory Council (DAC), start-ups, managed the project. David aims to foster opportunities for inter- Wettergreen, associate research professor action. of robotics, oversaw the project at the “It’s good to be diverse,” said Robotics Institute, where Ph.D. students CMU President Jared L. Cohon in his Mark Desnoyer, Michael Furlong and annual State of Diversity address on Scott Moreland and senior research Martin Luther King Jr. Day, “but we engineer John Thornton built the robot also need meaningful engagements.” and developed the software. In the DAC’s 2011 Annual Report — accessible online at C ONT I NUED ON PAGE F I VE www.cmu.edu/diversity-guide/ O NE Q&A With Adrien Treuille On EteRNA: A Game Scored By Nature n Byron Spice EteRNA, supported by a grant from “the lab,” where we really don’t know the Adrien Treuille has always strived to the National Science Foundation, began answers. create computer graphics that make the beta testing last fall and was launched At this level, we have an experimen- virtual world come alive, whether by publicly in January. Treuille and his col- tal road map that starts off with simple simulating the draft of air behind a race leagues expect the game will solve some shapes that aren’t found in nature. We’re LLE car with his Emmy-nominated Draft of the mysteries surrounding RNA, but I then going to introduce more and more REU Track special effect or the folding of pro- they also hope to show that science can T complicated shapes. If people are going EN be crowdsourced. I to ace the early shapes easily, then we can teins in the online game FoldIt. Now the DR A assistant professor of computer science rapidly move through the biochemical and robotics has developed an online Y ou are using online games to pipeline. If not, then we’ll have to spend involve a wide array of people more time creating them. Ultimately we game that literally comes alive. OF OURTESY in scientific research. Why is C want to design RNAs that are biologically Called EteRNA, http://eterna.cmu. this important and why are you edu, the game first enlists players to doing this? PHOTO interesting. design molecules of RNA (ribonucleic There are many more people in the A DR I EN T REU I LLE M AKES V I RTUAL On this game we have computer acid), which biologists now suspect plays world than there are scientists. Scientists W ORLDS CO M E AL I VE . a much more important role in cells than scientists here at Carnegie shouldn’t have a monopoly on scientific Mellon collaborating with bio- previously recognized. Then the best Your new game EteRNA focuses discovery. They have historically because chemists at Stanford University. on RNA design. Why did you of the player designs are selected each there are huge barriers to becoming a How did that arrangement come choose that as a topic for a week to be synthesized in the biochemis- scientist in respect to the time required about? game? try lab of Rhiju Das, Treuille’s collabo- and the money required to have a Ph.D. Rhiju Das, an assistant professor of RNA is one of the trinity of basic rator at Stanford University. And not everyone can do that. One of the biochemistry at Stanford, and I knew each molecules that make up life, along with The complex, three-dimensional broader trends of the Internet is to break other back when we were both post-docs DNA and proteins. We’re just starting to shape of RNA is critical to its function, down those kinds of barriers and we’re in the David Baker Lab, which is a bio- understand all of what it does, and it’s so these real-life tests of the designs trying to do it in science. Essentially, we chemistry lab at the University of Wash- sort of shrouded in mystery, so it’s a very developed with computer tools are es- are creating mechanisms through which ington. I was working on FoldIt back then exciting place to be biochemically. But sential. Does the RNA self-assemble into advanced science is accessible to non- and he was working on RNA. RNA has another interesting property the desired shape, or does it fold at all? experts, so they ultimately can contribute We subsequently talked about apply- from a game-design perspective. Unlike The synthesis provides the answer, giving to science as well. ing the FoldIt idea to RNA. Years later, proteins, it can be synthesized and stud- players a score, while also making them one of my computer science Ph.D. stu- ied very, very readily. At the moment we part of the scientific process. And a game is the primary dents here at Carnegie Mellon, Jeehyung understood that, we realized we had the mechanism you are using here? Lee, started working on that. He really basis for a completely new kind of game The hope is that you’ll want to play this quickly produced this jaw-dropping in which it would be possible to have even if you don’t care that you’re con- demo. experiments inside the game loop and tributing to science. For reasons that we We were all at a small conference that scores could be based on the results don’t quite understand, people want to in Washington, and we all sat down one of those physical experiments. PIPER have high scores. It’s almost like a cave- night and talked about how this could be 2/11 Issue man instinct. You want to have more How do novices learn how to really fun — now what can we do with stones in your cave than the next person. P UBLISHER design RNA? this? That’s where we came up with the Teresa Thomas It doesn’t really matter what those One of the main design decisions in idea that RNAs could be synthesized E DI to R stones are. So what we’ve seen again readily, and so synthesis itself – experi- Bruce Gerson EteRNA was determining how much bio- and again is if you take an activity and chemistry the community could handle.