Ben Bolstad

Phd (2004)
Biostatistics
University Of California, Berkeley
email bmb@bmbolstad.com

Research

I have been heavily involved with the development of statistical algorithms for microarray data analysis. Including spending a great deal of time as a member of Terry Speed's group at UC Berkeley from 1999-2004.

I developed the Quantile Normalization algorithm and showed that it performed well for microarray data. Working with several collaborators I created the RMA algorithm for producing expression measures for Affymetrix GeneChip data. A great deal of my research has focused on the development and application of Probe Level Models (PLM) for the analysis of high-density oligonucleotide array data. One interesting application of PLM is for the quality assessment of GeneChip data. The PLM Image Gallery contains a number of images demonstrating the results of these techniques.

In 2005 I spent time at Predicant Biosciences developing statistical and computational techinques for the analysis of mass spectrometry data.

Dissertation

Bolstad, BM (2004) Low Level Analysis of High-density Oligonucleotide Array Data: Background, Normalization and Summarization. Dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. Postscript or PDF

Published Articles

These are some of the articles I have been involved with:
Sandrine Dudoit,Yee Hwa Yang and Ben Bolstad (2002) Using R for the Analysis of DNA Microarray Data, R News, 2, 1, 24-32 Rnews
Bolstad, B.M., Irizarry R. A., Astrand, M., and Speed, T.P. (2003), A Comparison of Normalization Methods for High Density Oligonucleotide Array Data Based on Bias and Variance. Bioinformatics 19(2):185-193 Supplemental information. Note that this paper was named a hot paper by ISI Essential Science Indicators in July 2004.
Rafael. A. Irizarry, Benjamin M. Bolstad, Francois Collin, Leslie M. Cope, Bridget Hobbs and Terence P. Speed (2003), Summaries of Affymetrix GeneChip probe level data Nucleic Acids Research 31(4):e15
Barczak, A., Rodriguez, M. W., Hanspers, K., Koth, L. L., Tai, Y. C., Bolstad, B. M., Speed, T. P., and Erle, D. J. (2003), Spotted Long Oligonucleotide Arrays for Human Gene Expression Analysis Genome Research link
Gautier, L., Cope, L.M., Bolstad, B. M., and Irizarry, R. A. (2004) affy - Analysis of Affymetrix GeneChip data at the probe level. Bioinformatics. 20(3):307-315 gziped Postscript pre-print
Bolstad, B. M., Collin, F., Simpson, K. M., Irizarry, R. A. and Speed, T. P. (2004) Design and low level analysis of microarray experiments. International Review of Neurobiology 60:25-58.
Gentleman RC, Carey VJ, Bates DM, Bolstad B, Dettling M, Dudoit S, Ellis B, Gautier L, Ge Y, Gentry J, Hornik K, Hothorn T, Huber W, Iacus S, Irizarry R, Leisch F, Li C, Maechler M, Rossini AJ, Sawitzki G, Smith C, Smyth G, Tierney L, Yang JY, and Zhang J. (2004) Bioconductor: open software development for computational biology and bioinformatics. Genome Biol. 5(10):R80 Full text
Bolstad BM, Irizarry RA, Gautier L, and Wu Z. (2005) Preprocessing High-density Oligonucleotide Arrays in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Solutions Using R and Bioconductor. Gentleman R, Carey V, Huber W, Irizarry R, and Dudoit S. (Eds.), Springer, 2005. Publisher Website
Bolstad BM, Collin F, Brettschneider J, Simpson K, Cope L, Irizarry RA, and Speed TP. (2005) Quality Assessment of Affymetrix GeneChip Data in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Solutions Using R and Bioconductor. Gentleman R, Carey V, Huber W, Irizarry R, and Dudoit S. (Eds.), Springer, 2005. Publisher Website
Bolstad BM (2006) Pre-processing Microarray Data in Fundamentals of Data Mining for Genomics and Proteomics Dubitzky W, Granzow M, Berrar DP (Eds.), Springer, 2006. Publisher Website Chapter Supplementary Information
Bolstad BM (2008) Preprocessing and Normalization for Affymetrix GeneChip Expression Microarrays in Methods in Microarray Normalization Phillip Stafford (Ed), CRC Press, 2008 Publisher Website
Bolstad BM, Ghosh S and Turpaz Y (2008) SNP Array-Based Analysis for Detection of Chromosomal Aberrations and Copy Number Variations in Methods in Microarray Normalization Phillip Stafford (Ed), CRC Press, 2008 Publisher Website
Click here for a PubMed search on some of these papers

Manuscripts

Unpublished material
Bolstad, B (2001) Probe Level Quantile Normalization of High Density Oligonucleotide Array Data Unpublished Manuscript PDF file
Bolstad, B. M. (2002) Comparing the effects of background, normalization and summarization on gene expression estimates. Unpublished Manuscript PDF file
Bolstad, B. M. (2002) Investigating the effects of simple filtering on detecting differential gene expression. Unpublished Manuscript PDF file
Bolstad, B. M. (2002) Using MM in place of PM for detecting differential gene expression Unpublished Manuscript PDF file
Bolstad, B. M. (1998) Comparing some iterative methods of parameter estimation for censored gamma data University of Waikato Dissertation PDF file PS file

Published Abstracts

Evans S.J., Li J., Choudary P.V., Tomita H., Vawter M.P., Turner C.A., Lopez J.F., Thompson R.C., Meng, F., Bolstad, B.M., Speed, T.P., Myers R.M., Bunney, W.E., Jones E.G., Watson, S., Akil H. (2004) Dysregulation of Specific Growth Factor System Gene Expression in Limbic Structures of Subjects with Major Depressive Disorder. Society for Neuroscience 34th Annual Meeting link
Tomita H., Vawter M.P., Shao L., Atz M.E., Overman K.M., Meng F., Neal C.R., Stead, J.D.H, Evans, S.J., Choudary, P.V., Li, J., Bolstad, B.M., Cartagena P., Walsh, D.M., Speed, T.P., Myers, R.M., Jones, E.G., Watson S., Akil, H., Bunney, W.E. (2004) Gene Expression Profiles of G-protein Signaling Pathway Related Genes in Postmortem Brains of Mood Disorder Patients. Society for Neuroscience 34th Annual Meeting link
Vawter, M.P., Tomita, H., Atz, M., Li, J., Meng, F., Overman, K., Shao, L., Bolstad, B, Speed, T.P., Stead, J., Choudary, P.V., Neal, C., Evans, S., Walsh, D., Myers, R., Watson, S.J., Jones, E.G, Akil, H, Bunney, W.E. (2004) Mitochondrial Related Gene Expression In Affective Disorders In Postmortem Brain Society for Neuroscience 34th Annual Meeting link
Vawter M.P., Tomita H., Evans S., Choudary P., Li J., Bolstad B., Meador-Woodruff J.H., Lopez J, Speed T., Myers R.M., Watson S, Akil H., Jones E.G., and Bunney W.E. (2003) Bipolar and Major Depressive disorder gene expression profiling in three brain regions American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics Volume 122B, Issue 1 link
Vawter, M.P., Evans, S.J., Choudary, P., Atz, M., Tomita, H., Bolstad, B., Li, J, Speed, T.P., Myers, R., Watson, S.J, Jones, E. G., Akil, H. and Bunney W.E. (2003) Patterns of Differential Gene Expression In Schizophrenia Overlap In Cortical Regions. American Society of Human Genetics 53nd annual meeting
Tomita, H., Vawter, M.P., Evans, S.J., Choudary, P., Li, J., Bolstad, B., Speed, T., Myers, R.M., Jones, E.G., Watson, S.J., Akil, H., and Bunney, W.E. (2003) Effects of Mood Disorders and Suicide on Gene Expression Profiles in Postmortem Brains. American Society of Human Genetics 53nd annual meeting

Talks

Probe-Level Data Analysis of Affymetrix GeneChip Expression Data using Open-source Software
Affymetrix, South San Francisco, CA
Aug 7, 2006
pdf version
Probe-level analysis of Affymetrix GeneChip Microarray Data using BioConductor
Genentech Bioinformatics, South San Francisco, CA
May 22, 2006
pdf version
Methodologies for Pre-processing Microarray Data
Genentech Biostatistics, South San Francisco, CA
Mar 31, 2006
pdf version
Normalization and standardization: the benefits of pre-processing
Statistical Analysis of Genetic and Gene Expression Data Molpage Workshop
Pavia, Italy
Mar 20, 2006
pdf version

Pavia Workshop material can be found here

Older talks (prior to June 2005) are to be found here

Posters

Effects of Pre-processing on Expression Estimates: Background and Normalization
Affymetrix Low Level Workshop 2003
Held at UC Berkeley, Alumni House
Poster session August 7, 2003
Abstract
Poster pdf
Supplemental pdf
R code
Quality Assessment of Gene Expression Data for Affymetrix Genechips
Francois Colin, Julia Brettschneider, Ben Bolstad, Terry Speed
Affymetrix Low Level Workshop 2003
Held at UC Berkeley, Alumni House
Poster session August 7, 2003
Click here to download the pdf file

Software

I have written an number of pieces of software. Mostly for the analysis of microarray data. For more information see my software page. I am currently a BioConductor core member.

Some notes/FAQ on the software

Why do my MAS 5.0 values differ? explains the differences between the MAS 5.0 implementation in BioConductor affy package and those that you might get from Affymetrix MAS 5.0 software.

Some FAQ about computing the RMA expression measure has details about computing the RMA expression measure using currently available software.

Miscellaneous

Places to eat near the UC Berkeley Campus

Teaching

This is material for classes that I taught previously. It is left here for historical interest.
SFSU Math 124 Spring 2005
SFSU Math 124 Fall 2004
SFSU Math 324 Fall 2004
UCB Stat 215b Spring 2004 Section page
UCB Stat 20 Fall 2003 Section page
UCB STAT 200B (Spring '00) webpage
UCB STAT 200B (Spring '99) webpage