Beyond Bioinformatics

Title

SPCalc: A web-based calculator for sample size and power calculations in micro-array studies

Authors

Weiliang Qiu^1* and Mei-Ling Ting Lee²

Affiliation

^1* Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 181 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115;

² Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Room B-122, Starling-Loving Hall, 320 W. 10th

Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1240

Email

stwxq@channing.harvard.edu; * Corresponding author

Article Type

Web Server

Date

received November 13,2006; accepted November 21, 2006; published online November 22, 2006

Abstract

Calculation of the appropriate sample size in planning microarray studies is important because sample collection can be expensive and time-consuming. Sample-size calculation is also a challenging issue for microarray studies because the number of genes is far larger than the number of samples so that traditional methods of sample-size calculation cannot be directly applied. To help investigators answer the question of how many samples are needed in their microarray studies, we developed a user-friendly web-based calculator, SPCalc, for calculating sample size and power for a variety of commonly used experimental designs, including completely randomized treatment-control design, matched-pairs design, multiple-treatment design having an isolated treatment effect, and randomized block design.

Keywords

gene expression; microarray; sample size; power calculation

Availability

The web-based calculator SPCalc is publicly available at http://www.biostat.harvard.edu/people/faculty/mltlee/web-front-r.html

Citation

Edited by

P. Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics Publishing Group

Copyright

Publisher

Copyright Transfer Statement

The authors of published articles in Bioinformation automatically transfer the copyright to the publisher upon formal acceptance. However, the authors reserve right to use the information contained in the article for non commercial purposes.

License

This is an open-access article, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited.