New chemometric tools for chemistry and systems biology

The advance of analytical instrumentation has led to the availability of unprecedented amounts of data for individual samples, and this phenomenon has spilled over into the realm of biology, where high throughput analytical approaches such as microarrays, protein mass spectrometry, and high field NMR spectroscopy have revolutionized research into cell biology. These advances have been essential to address the increasing complexity of the analytical samples and the questions posed by scientists from diverse fields of study. Nowhere is this more true than in the nascent field of systems biology, which promises not only a broader understanding of biological processes, but concomitant advances in areas such as drug discovery and personalized medicine. Associated with this proliferation of analytical and bioanalytical measurements is the pressing need to find new tools to turn the data into information and new knowledge. The challenge of finding meaning in the complex relationships embodied in multivariate measurements requires a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on elements of statistics, computer science, biology and chemistry. It is this challenge that is the focus of the applicant's proposed research program, which seeks to identify new chemometric and bioinformatics methods to address the needs of scientific inquiry. The proposed work emphasizes the necessity of understanding the intricate nature of measurement errors in modern analytical and biological techniques, and the development of methods to use to this knowledge effectively for the optimal extraction of information. In particular, research will concentrate on transcriptomics (the study of gene expression in cells) and metabolomics (the study of metabolic signatures of organisms), using data for a variety of organisms including yeast, fruit flies and a malaria parasite. Fundamental biological insights will be sought by trying to model the dymamic relationships among genes or metabolites in systems undergoing change. The ultimate goal is a better understanding of regulatory mechanisms in living organisms.