Analyses in 2013

This Analysis compares two large-scale pharmacogenomic data sets that catalogued the sensitivity of a large number of cancer cell lines to approved and potential drugs, and finds that whereas the gene expression data are largely concordant between the two studies, the reported drug sensitivity measures and subsequently their association with genomic features are highly discordant.

Building a device capable of factoring large numbers is a major goal of quantum computing; an algorithm for quantum factoring (Shor’s algorithm) exists, and a simple coin-tossing exercise is used to illustrate the dangers of oversimplification when implementing this algorithm experimentally.