THE CRISPR (CLUSTERED REGULARLY INTERSPACED SHORT PALINDROMIC REPEATS)/CAS (CRISPR-ASSOCIATED PROTEIN) SYSTEM HAS EMERGED AS A POWERFUL TOOL FOR GENOME EDITING AND GENETIC ENGINEERING DUE TO ITS SIMPLICITY, VERSATILITY AND BROAD APPLICABILITY. IN CONTRAST TO THE RAPID PROGRESS AND BROAD APPLICATIONS OF CRISPR/CAS TECHNOLOGIES IN BIOMEDICAL AND PLANT FIELDS, ONLY LIMITED CRISPR/CAS GENOME EDITING TOOLKITS HAVE BEEN TESTED AND AVAILABLE FOR PLANT PATHOGENIC FUNGI. THE OVERARCHING GOAL OF THIS PROJECT IS TO DEVELOP AND IMPROVE BIOINFORMATIC DATABASES AND CRISPR/CAS9 TOOLKITS FOR GUIDE RNA (GRNA) DESIGN AND GENOME EDITING IN PLANT PATHOGENIC FUNGI. THIS PROJECT WILL LEAD TO A SEARCHABLE DATABASE AND WEBSITE FOR FUNGAL GRNA DESIGN AND IMPROVED CRISPR/CAS9 GENOME EDITING TOOLKITS, WHICH ARE EXPECTED TO BENEFIT THE FUNGAL RESEARCH COMMUNITY AND ACCELERATE FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS ANALYSIS AND MECHANISTIC ELUCIDATION OF FUNGAL PATHOGENESIS.