It Just Adds Up to a Breakthrough in Genetics

Geneticists at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York have recently discovered that those patterned three-by-three, sudoku grids are good for more than occupying time on the subway or keeping the brain fit during downtime.

The very logical patterns at the root of sudoku have been found — when applied to the task of coding extremely complex DNA strands — to make quick work of an otherwise arduous process.

The grid-aided pattern recognition appear to be an application of the remainder theorem, an information mapping technique that dates back to China some 2,000 years ago.

The quest to locate a particular genetic mutation, critical for understanding disease and subsequently deriving a cure, is a needle and haystack affair. Enormous series of genetic information are subjected by the Cold Spring Harbor team to an organizational structure according to the ancient mapping theorem.

The principles of sudoku are then used to deduce patterns of necessary inclusion or exclusion, leaving the geneticists able to far more quickly identify the targeted genes of interest and to quickly cross reference back to the unique samples that produced them.

What this data organizational approach allows is the systematic and simultaneous review of large batches of genetic information, as opposed to employing a serial analysis of individual samples, one after another, in an effort to locate targeted genetic characteristics.

The implications for efficiency and savings are eye opening: Months of effort and analysis with a potential to cost $10 million are reduced to days, yielding projected cost savings of 99 percent.

An astonishing use of sudoku: Clearly, these keen genetic minds got game.