Your questions aren't specific for people working with CRISPR, but more generally relate to gene-editing. Unfortunately, molecular biology and genetics are imm

Your questions aren't specific for people working with CRISPR, but more generally relate to gene-editing. Unfortunately, molecular biology and genetics are immensely complex, once you start looking in to them. There very rarely is a 1:1 correlation between one gene and one single function of impact on the entire organism (even for single celled organisms). Moreover, in many cases loss of one gene can be compensated by the function of one or multiple different protein(s). To be fair, I haven't looked up any literature on computer models of how the change of one a single gene would influence the whole organism. However, that is a very complicated question. The closest analogy I can give you is "are there computer models how changing a resistor/capacitor will impact the quality of the picture of my TV?" Frankly, it's often hard to tell how the (novel) change of a single gene will influence a single cell! Regarding your second question: the data you want to collect is always related to the question your asking about the gene at hand. "How does loss of gene X impact cognitive capacity" would obviously require a completely different experimental set-up than asking "Which functional role does gene X fulfil in the immune system". Sorry I can't give a more satisfying answer. On a slightly related note, this article gives some insight on how biologists think and go about their experimental design and recording what they learn: http://math.arizona.edu/~jwatkins/canabiologistfixaradio.pdf http://math.arizona.edu/~jwatkins/canabiologistfixaradio.pdf