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Lesson 3: Designing BioInformatics Experiments

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Key Learning Goals for this Lesson:
  • Understand the roles of replication, blocking and sample size in good design
  • Understand when biological and technical replication are needed
  • Learn some of the statistical jargon
  • Learn the names and set-ups for some classical experimental designs

Overview of Experiment Design

The objective of good experimental design is to obtain accurate and replicable findings at reasonable allocation of resources.  While many details will be specific to the objective at hand, in this chapter we will review some of the general principles of good design.

We will also review two different objectives of bioinformatics experiments - technical experiments which seek to determine whether experimental protocols are accurate, and biological experiments which seek to further biological knowledge.