In 2025, we will see AI and machine learning begin to amplify the impact of Crispr genome editing in medicine, agriculture, climate change, and the basic research that underpins these fields. It’s worth saying upfront that the field of AI is awash with big promises like this. With any major new technological advance there is always a hype cycle, and we are in one now. In many cases, the benefits of AI lie some years in the future, but in genomics and life science research we are seeing real impacts right now.
In my field, Crispr gene editing and genomics more broadly, we often deal with enormous datasets—or, in many cases, we can’t deal with them properly because we simply don’t have the tools or the time. Supercomputers can take weeks to months to analyze subsets of data for a given question, so we have to be highly selective about which questions we choose to ask. AI and…
