DEDICATION

For their endless love and support that made my entire journey possible ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, and foremost I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Sorin Draghici, who taught me how to find and ask the important questions that are worth investigating. I am thankful for his patience to my mistakes and invaluable feedback he provided. Many thanks to my committee members: Dr. Robert G. Reynolds, Dr. Daniel Grosu and Dr. Michael Tainsky for their invaluable reviews and suggestions. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Tainsky for the challenges he threw at me regarding cancer classification and biomarker discovery. I would like to thank all the past and current members of the Intelligent Systems and Bioinformatics laboratory (ISBL) for their encouragement and support both in and out of the lab. Many thanks to Dr. Purvesh Khatri who helped me tremendously in my first years as a graduate student. I am thankful to Michele Donato for our great collaboration and friendship through the ups and down of our graduate endeavor. Zhonghui Xu thought me