Delaware Chapter, ASA Dinner Meeting: February 2008 Notice: Our meetings are located at the Blue and Gold Club Tavern on the University of Delaware campus. The schedule of meetings for Spring 2008 is set. See our Vice President's letter summarizing the meetings and offering words of praise and encouragement. Also see a very nice summary of our Fall 2007 meetings along with photos of our speakers. Speaker: Professor Hongzhe Li Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Title: Statistical Methods for Network-Based Analysis of Genomic Data Abstract: A central problem in genomic research is the identification of genes and pathways that are involved in diseases or perturbed during a biological process. Many methods have been developed for identifying genes in regression frameworks. The genes identified are often linked to known biological pathways through gene set enrichment analysis in order to identify the pathways involved. However, most of the procedures of identifying the biologically relevant genes do not utilize the known pathway information. In this talk, I present hidden Markov random field (HMRF)-based methods for identifying genes and subnetworks that are activated or perturbed by diseases or biological processes, where the latent gene differential expression states are modeled by a discrete Markov random field. Simulation studies indicated that the methods are effective in identifying genes and subnetworks that are related to disease and have higher sensitivity and lower false discovery rates than the commonly used procedures that do not use the pathway structure information. I will demonstrate these methods by analyzing a breast cancer gene expression dataset to identify the modules related to cancer metastasis and a systemic immune response time course gene expression dataset to identify the subnetworks involved in human immune response to endotoxin. Date: Thursday, February 21, 2008   Time: Social hour -- 6:00 pm Dinner -- 6:30 pm Speaker -- 7:15 pm   Place: Blue and Gold Club Tavern University of Delaware   Directions/Map   Menu: Entree: Buffet or order from menu -- depending on attendance Cost: $25 for members, $15 for students Or pay for your meal from the menu + $5.00.   Reservations to:  Bruce Stanley by Wednesday, February 20, 2008. Phone: 302-695-6914 Email: Bruce Stanley.   Please note: Be sure to RSVP by this date.   Return to Delaware Chapter ASA home page.