Variability Analyzer is a tool that I have built that can calculate the variability at each position within a species' genome.

Variability

To quantify variability, I calculate the entropy values at each position along a given genome. Entropy (in bits) measures the uncertainty of determining what nucl eotide is at a given position, calculated as such:

\(\sum\limits_{p\in nuc\_freqs} p\times log_2(p)\)

Why is this useful?

Identifying conserved, or low-entropy regions, is extremely useful for drug and treatment development and diagnostic purposes. For example, this analysis can be u sed to design diagnostic primers for PCR or curative gRNAs for CRISPR-based treatments.