Abstract: A biological marker identification method identifies biological markers within broad sets of biological data containing many more measurements than observations. For example, the data can contain thousands of measurements on each blood sample obtained from fewer than 100 subjects, each of which falls into one of a set of clinical classes or is associated with a value of a continuous clinical response variable. At least one biomarker, containing a small subset of measurements, is found that is capable of predicting a clinical endpoint. The biomarker can be used for, e.g., diagnosing disease or assessing response to a drug. First, the set of measurements is reduced to a smaller set of candidate measurements by eliminating measurements that either cannot distinguish among classes or are redundant. Biomarker subsets are then selected from the remaining set of measurements, either by an exhaustive search or a heuristic method that finds good but not necessary globally optimal biomarkers.

Abstract: A clinical questionnaire system and method presents medical questions to a subject and determines additional questions to present based on the subject's response to previous questions. Positive responses to primary questions trigger presentation of secondary and lower-level questions requesting more specific information from the subject. Deeper-level questions follow a medical pathway correlated with a known medical condition and can prompt presentation of clinical warnings. Because the questionnaire is patient-centered, it is free from the medical bias inherent in a physician's administration of a questionnaire and orientation as to what constitutes true disease. By only presenting relevant questions, the questionnaire decreases the time burden on the subject. Longitudinal clinical data collected can be used for patient-oriented data analysis or, in combination with bioanalytical data, for biological marker discovery.