Large biological data analysis, statistical

STATISTICAL TESTING AND SIGNIFICANCE FOR LARGE BIOLOGICAL DATA ANALYSIS... 

HTS is an integrated process, where a large amount of input samples are distilled into a few valuable ones through the use of appropriate biological (the assays), mechanical (the robots), and statistical (data analysis) tools. The desired outcome of HTS is usually a molecule endowed with a desired bioactivity whose structure could not be predicted a priori. The success of... 

From a chemical and biochemical point of view, biomarker discovery use a range of familiar techniques and tools that have been around for a long time such as SDS-PAGE, HPLC, mass spectrometry, etc. What is new is the number of samples and the data analysis that are often new and complicated. Biological systems especially involving human subjects are highly variable and lack a much of the consistency that is seen in other experimental systems such as animal models. Thus, it is important to choose methods that can be applied to large numbers of samples in order to deal with the statistical requirements of human samples. In a cfinical study it is not uncommon to think of hundreds or thousands of samples to vahdate a biomarker. This will require the use of bioinformatics to analyze and interpret data and to keep track of the vast amount of data and information that will be used in the process of biomarker discovery and validation. 

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