SNOMAD (Standardization and NOrmalization of MicroArrayData): web-accessible gene expression data analysis

Summary: SNOMAD is a collection of algorithms for the normalization and standardization of gene expression datasets derived from diverse biological and technological sources. In addition to conventional transformations and visualization tools, SNOMAD includes two non-linear transformations which correct for bias and variance which are non-uniformly distributed across the range of microarray element signal intensities: (1) Local mean normalization; and (2) Local variance correction (Z-score generation using a locally calculated standard deviation). Availability: The SNOMAD tools were developed in the R statistical language http://www.r-project.org/. SNOMAD is an interactive, user-friendly web-application which can be accessed freely via the internet with any standard HTML browser: http://pevsnerlab.kennedykrieger.org/snomad.htm. Contact: ccolantu@jhmi.edu or pevsner@jhmi.edu * To whom correspondence should be addressed. † Present address: Wadham College, Oxford University, UK.