Common Themes in Statistical Bioinformatics Analyses

• Activity Number: 454
• Type: Other
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: ASA
• Author(s): Rebecca W. Doerge*+
• Companies: Purdue University
• Keywords: bioinformatics ; statistical genetics ; epigenomics ; genomics ; microarray ; next generation sequencing

Abstract

Statistical Bioinformatics has emerged as an exciting research area that is propelled by both science and technology. Molecular markers, microarrays, and now next-generation sequencing technologies have pushed the boundaries of science, both computationally and analytically. With respect to mapping and quantifying transcriptomes, or assessing the epigenome, next-generation sequencing technologies have recently been established as the approach of choice. However, as the complexities of experiments continue to grow, there is still no standard practice that allows for design, processing, normalization, efficient dimension reduction and/or statistical analysis. With this in mind, a review of some of the key challenges/themes that are in common to all statistical bioinformatics investigations, namely experimental design, statistical analysis and dimensionality reduction, will be discussed with an eye to future technologies that are on the horizon.