This guide covers aspects of designing microarray experiments and analysing the data generated, including information on some of the tools that are available from non-commercial sources. Concepts and principles underpinning gene expression analysis are emphasised and wherever possible, the mathematics has been simplified. The guide is intended for use by graduates and researchers in bioinformatics and the life sciences and is also suitable for statisticians who are interested in the approaches currently used to study gene expression.

• Microarrays are an automated way of carrying out thousands of experiments at once, and allows scientists to obtain huge amounts of information very quickly
• Short, concise text on this difficult topic area
• Clear illustrations throughout
• Written by well-known teachers in the subject
• Provides insight into how to analyse the data produced from microarrays

Helen Causton is an experimental biologist who carried out some of the early studies on genome-wide transcriptional regulation in yeast using microarrays. She is Head of the Clinical Sciences Microarray Centre at Imperial College, University of London.

John Quackenbush is a principal investigator at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). His research interests include development of software for microarray data analysis, gene indices and comparative genomics.

Alvis Brazma is a computer scientist who has been involved in microarray data analysis since 1998. He heads microarray informatics at the European Bioinformatics Institute and is in charge of establishing a public repository for microarray data.