CRISPR (short for Clustered, Regularly Interspaced, Short Palindromic Repeats) is a genetic phenomenon found in microbes that scientists adapted to disable a gene or add DNA at precise locations in the genetic code. CRISPR isn’t the first gene-editing tool on the block, but it is by far the simplest and cheapest, and since its adaptation four years ago, it has proliferated globally. Researchers can use it to knock out genes in animal models to study their function, give crops new agronomic traits, synthesize microbes that produce drugs, create gene therapies to treat disease, and potentially—after some serious ethical debate—to genetically correct heritable diseases in human embryos.
However, as good as CRISPR is compared to its predecessors, the tool doesn’t always work. There's where algorithms step in, helping researchers design their CRISPR tools in a way that is statistically more likely to succeed. The molecular gadget can be programmed to accurately tweak the DNA of any organism, but scientists need software algorithms to hasten the programming process. Dozens of teams are developing such software, and each faces the task of keeping up with rapidly evolving science and an increasingly crowded field.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical...-gene-editing-tool-crispr-live-up-to-its-hype
However, as good as CRISPR is compared to its predecessors, the tool doesn’t always work. There's where algorithms step in, helping researchers design their CRISPR tools in a way that is statistically more likely to succeed. The molecular gadget can be programmed to accurately tweak the DNA of any organism, but scientists need software algorithms to hasten the programming process. Dozens of teams are developing such software, and each faces the task of keeping up with rapidly evolving science and an increasingly crowded field.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical...-gene-editing-tool-crispr-live-up-to-its-hype