(JNS.org) The Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has collaborated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to create an algorithm that could scan as many as millions of genetic sequences from a variety of organisms for links that potentially indicate diseases. This process could allow doctors, researchers, and patients to analyze a gene’s evolutionary profile and would “change the face of biomedical research by creating the ability to identify unique disease-related genes and predict their biological functions,” said the Israeli-American research team, headed by Dr. Yuval Tabach, a molecular biologist and researcher from Hebrew University’s Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, the Jerusalem Post reported. Additionally, the development “opens the door to drug repositioning, which holds the promise of new treatments for genetic diseases or cancer,” the researchers said.