A computer-based microarray experiment design-system for gene-regulation pathway discovery

This paper reports the methods and evaluation of a computer-based system that recommends microarray experimental design for biologists - causal discovery in Gene Expression data using Expected Value of Experimentation (GEEVE). The GEEVE system uses causal Bayesian networks and generates a decision tree for recommendations. To evaluate the GEEVE system, we first built an expression simulation model based on a gene regulation model assessed by an expert biologist. Using the simulation model, we conducted a controlled study that involved 10 biologists, some of whom used GEEVE and some of whom did not. The results show that biologists who used GEEVE reached correct causal assessments about gene regulation more often than did those biologists who did not use GEEVE.