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Abstract:
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Problems in molecular biology offer exciting opportunities in statistical research, but require specialized interdisciplinary knowledge and skills. Statistics students with little biology background are sometimes reluctant to enter the field, but can be encouraged if they are exposed to it early in the program. Our department offered an introductory course that can be taken during the first two years in graduate school. The course focuses on the analysis of gene expression microarrays, and builds upon a series of successful workshops offered by the bioconductor community. The course emphasizes statistical methods in the "large p small n" paradigm, inference in the context of biological knowledge and annotations, and computing with R and bioconductor. We found that the course helped stimulate the interest in this area, and motivated a number of students to pursue research in this field.
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