In a major advance for agricultural science, researchers have developed a new computational tool designed to swiftly and efficiently expose genetic diversity within DNA databases of various plant species.

The open-source platform is poised to accelerate the discovery of genetic variations that are key to developing crops with improved resilience, yield and nutritional value.

Harnessing advanced algorithms and the capabilities of high-performance computing (HPC), the KAUST team, led by plant genomicist Rod Wing, demonstrated the tool’s ability to detect small DNA differences — so-called single nucleotide variants (SNPs) — across various strains of rice, maize, soybean and sorghum.

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