BAYAS: simplifying access to Bayesian analysis for biologists.

Waterkamp, Christoph; Hoffmann, Daniel · Bioinformatics · 2025

other · Level V

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Abstract

In biological research, complex and noisy biological systems with small effects are often studied with small sample sizes. Such a setting is ideal for Bayesian analysis as it supplements new data with prior knowledge and emphasizes uncertainty quantification. Unfortunately, the proper application of Bayesian analysis requires a degree of computational expertise beyond the training of many biologists. We have developed BAYAS (BAYesian Analysis Simplified), a web-based tool that provides programming-free access to Bayesian workflows for numerous use cases. BAYAS comes with three modules: Planning for Bayesian determination of sample sizes; Evaluation for Bayesian analysis of experimental data; Report to make analyses transparent and reproducible. BAYAS can be accessed freely at https://bayas.zmb.uni-due.de/app/bayas (server) and https://github.com/GitCJW/bayas_bioinformatics or https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15052467 (source).

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