ARDock: A Web-AR Based Real-Time Tangible Edugame for Molecular Docking

Molecular docking is increasingly considered as a key tool for lead discovery of structure-based drug design. While huge ligand-receptor combinations, intangible microcosmic molecular world and complex docking scoring are the major challenges for modern molecular docking. In this paper, we present an edugame called ARDock, which is a web-based and interactive molecular docking game. The web-based feature allows multiple participants to engage in the game and provides solutions to complex scientific problems. Augmented reality is imported and consequently molecular docking process becomes tangible. The relative positions of two molecules are instantly updated with the users’ operation, enabling the spatial locating capabilities of humans. The optimized scoring function is proposed to reduce the computation complexity, and the message-oriented middleware facilitates real-time communication between the browsers and the server. The overall framework and detailed designs are illustrated. Some combination strategies make this edugame more interesting, which in return can attract more users and enhance their continuous participation. Sufficient user evaluations validate the usability of this game. This work is a step to promote the popularization of molecular docking knowledge.