Abstract

The research in proteins and their functions (proteomics) is a promising field in clinical research. Since proteins are considered a fingerprint of biological functions and are vastly available in bodily fluids and tissue, proteomics can be used, for example, as diagnostic tool for the early detection of cancer. This would improve the chance of survival of a patient considerably. This kind of research is characterized by the cooperation of direrent highly specialized groups. This thesis describes the development and implementation of SPECTRA: a data analysis program for protein patterns. It encompasses a loading procedure to extract sample information from complex structured data, exported by the mass spectrometer. Furthermore, it provides direrent data preprocess and dimension reduction algorithms, extensive visualization options and a classification algorithm.