Project X: Statistical methods in spectroscopy in genomics, proteomics and metabonomics.

Mass spectrometry is a commonly used technique in proteomics, but spectroscopic methods in general are used in bioinformatics; a recent study used statistical methods for classification of tissue samples in cancer studies. Data reduction is a key aspect, and this will be the focus of the project. Fortunately, the computational aspects have been studied extensively, and many well established techniques have been developed.

Similar techniques are also used in the rapidly developing field of metabonomics. High frequency proton NMR spectroscopy provides a rapid method of characterizing and quantifying a wide range of metabolites in untreated biological fluids and a powerful means of exploring the biochemical consequences of disease and toxicological processes. The coupling of biofluid NMR spectroscopy to mathematical data reduction methods give us a new metabonomic approach to disease diagnosis complementary to proteomics and genomics and can readily be applied in vivo in essentially non-invasive studies.

In this project, different statistical and computational approaches to, for example, data reduction and extraction will be studied.