Instructor
Dr. Raphael Gottardo
From the Syllabus
Administrative Information
Times: MW 1:30-3:00
Place: LSK 301
Office Hours: MW 3:00-4:00
Course Web Page: http://www.stat.ubc.ca/~raph/Teaching/Stat540/Stat540.html
Objectives
(a) To provide students from the computational sciences, especially statistics, an introduction to the
exciting problems arising in genomic research; and (b) to provide students with a primary background
in molecular biology and biochemistry with an introduction to the statistical techniques that are particularly
relevant for genomic data.
Prerequisites
While there is no precise prerequisites for this class, some statistical and basic computing knowledge
are HIGHLY recommended. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are not sure you have the
right statistical and/or computing background.
Topics (tentative)
• Basic molecular biology and genetics
• DNA microarrays (spotted and Affymetrix)
• Introduction to gene expression analysis
• Normalization techniques
• Testing for differential expression (Multiple testing, Bayes and empirical Bayes methods, etc.)
• Multivariate techniques (PCA, Clustering)
Grading
Homework/Assignments 60%
Final Project 40%
Suggested Textbooks
1. Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick and Woollcott Smith
2. Cartoon Guide to Genetics by Larry Gonick
3. An Introduction to R by W. N. Venables and D. M. Smith (Freely available at
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.pdf)
4. Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Solutions Using R and Bioconductor by Robert
Gentleman, Vincent Carey, Wolfgang Huber, Rafael Irizarry, Sandrine Dudoit
5. Molecular Biology of the Cell by Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff,
Keith Roberts and Peter Walter