A multilayer perceptron framework for sparse multiple kernel learning

Advancing cancer research and improving patient care heavily rely on understanding how biological mechanisms change as cancer progresses. Identifying the active biological processes within tumors is crucial for developing targeted treatments and potential biomarkers for early detection and prognosis. In this thesis, we focused on distinguishing between early-stage and late-stage cancers using gene expression profiles, aiming to develop a powerful and interpretable model. Machine learning methods have shown promise in cancer research by enabling the analysis of vast genomic and clinical data to uncover hidden patterns and predictive features. Our work centered around harnessing the capabilities of a multilayer perceptron (MLP) model to create a sparse solution within the context of multiple kernel learning (MKL). This enabled our model to proficiently differentiate between early-stage and late-stage cancers based on gene expression profiles. Our model not only offered high predictive performance but also provided valuable insights into the crucial genes and pathways driving cancer progression. To evaluate our MLP model, we benchmarked it against three well-established machine learning algorithms: random forest, support vector machine, and MKL. Remarkably, our model consistently achieved better or comparable predictive performance, as measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, across 15 cancer cohorts. The findings demonstrate that our proposed MLP model effectively identifies critical genes and pathways driving cancer progression, offering valuable insights into early-stage and late-stage cancer classification.