Robust Optimization of Biological Protocols

• Activity Number: 133
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 4, 2014 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Quality and Productivity Section
• Author(s): Patrick Flaherty*+ and Ronald W. Davis
• Companies: Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Stanford University
• Keywords: Experimental Design ; Robust Parameter Design ; Response Surface Methods ; Process Improvement ; Analysis of Designed Experiments

Abstract

When conducting high-throughput biological experiments, it is often necessary to develop a protocol that is both inexpensive and robust. Standard approaches are either not cost-effective or arrive at an optimized protocol that is sensitive to experimental variations. We show here a novel approach that directly minimizes the cost of the protocol while ensuring the protocol is robust to experimental variation. Our approach uses a risk-averse conditional value-at-risk criterion in a robust parameter design framework. We demonstrate this approach on a polymerase chain reaction protocol and show that our improved protocol is less expensive than the standard protocol and more robust than a protocol optimized without consideration of experimental variation.