STATISTICS FOR BIOINFORMATICS (BU:XRG NU500 A1, NEU: MTH 3461)

PRELIMINARY OPTIMISTIC DRAFT OF THE SYLLABUS

The ambitious aim of this four-credit one-semester course is to introduce students to statistical methods used in further more technical courses. Some of the material is to become a working instrument in further work, while the rest is introduced for orientation in the multidisciplinary field of Bioinformatics. Basic relevant concepts from Probability, Stochastic processes, Information Theory, Statistitics and Experimental Design will be introduced and illustrated by examples from Molecular Biology, Genomics and Population Genetics with an outline of algorithms and software.

Textbook : Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics. An Introduction, by Warren J. Ewens and Gregory R. Grant, Springer, N.Y., 2001, must be available from the NEU bookstore. This seems to be a first specialized textbook for such a course based on a two-semester course taught for 6 last years in the University of Pennsylvania.

Its 8 chapters will be covered more or less systematically with certain omissions. A sample of examples from the next chapters will be studied also.

An additional collection of statistical problems in Genetics and Molecular Biology will be used for homework assignments. It will be uploaded to the Blackboard account of this course soon.

A good additional reading in Probability might be: "Intro. to Probability", second edition, by C. M. Grinstead and J.L. Snell, AMS, 1998, which is available (together with many java applets illustrating the material and games related to chance) from

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/probability_book/book.html

A good additional reading in Statistics might be "Statistical Tools for Internet and Classroom Instruction with a Graphical User Interface " by Philip B. Stark available from

http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/SticiGui/index.htm

Two labs based on the package SPSS (or EXCEL, or any other package with random number generation facility) is part of the homework. You can download the intro to SPSS free, for example, from http://www.csubak.edu/ssric/Modules/SPSS/SPSSBOOK/9-1.htm One of many sites, where statistical data may be downloaded from, is http://www.springer-ny.com/supplements/gerber/

Projects based on examples from Bioinformatics covered in the textbook will be 10% grade each.

Time and Place: Mondays and Wednesdays, 4-5.30,

first class will be on September 5 in 509 Lake Hall, NEU.

Instructor for few first classes: Prof. Mike Malyutov, Mathematics Dept., NEU, Phone: 373 5650, office: 545 Lake Hall, e-mail: MLTV@neu.edu,

Permanent Instructor: Prof. Sam Gutmann,

office:533 NI, phone: x5235, e-mail: sgutm@neu.edu

Office hours TBA or by appontment via phone or e-mail.

Grade: 20% weekly homework, 40% two best tests or projects, 40% final test.