Patent ID: 7467118

Claim:
A computer-based method for deriving a linear classifier for gene expression data comprising: (a) providing a training dataset comprising two subsets of gene expression measurements, wherein one subset of measurements is labeled in-class and the other subset of measurements is labeled not-in-class; (b) providing an objective function, wherein said objective function comprises a 1-norm regularization term and a loss term, wherein said loss term comprises: (i) a classification error for each measurement labeled in the class and a weighting constant for the total in-class classification error; and (ii) a classification error for each measurement labeled not in the class and a weighting constant for the total not-in-class classification error; (c) minimizing said objective function on the training dataset; whereby said minimized objective function provides a linear classifier capable of classifying a dataset of gene expression measurements obtained from a biological sample as in-class or not-in-class.