A research team led by Professor Jeongbin Park at Pusan National University has developed a new genome-editing off-target prediction tool called "Variant-aware Cas-OFFinder." Published in Nucleic Acids Research, this breakthrough significantly improves the precision of CRISPR editing by incorporating individual genomic variation data.

The tool, co-developed by Ph.D. candidate Abyot Melkamu Mekonnen and Master's student Kang Seong, can analyze the impact of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and insertions/deletions (indels) on off-target effects. "Genome editing tools should be as personalized as the genomes they target," said Professor Park. Unlike conventional methods that rely solely on standard reference genomes, this new technology identifies individual-specific off-target sites.

In testing on the human genome, the team discovered off-target sites on chromosome 10 that were missed by traditional tools. In the pepper genome, it detected allele-specific off-targets. The tool supports 557 species and 40 PAM types, and is available in both web interface and command-line versions.