AN EVALUATION OF THE APPLICATION OF THE GENETIC ALGORITHM TO THE PROBLEM OF ORDERING GENETIC-LOCI ON HUMAN-CHROMOSOMES USING RADIATION HYBRID DATA

We consider the problem of ordering detectable genetic loci along a ch romosome by minimizing the number of obligatory breaks that can be inf erred from radiation hybrid data. The problem bears some resemblance t o the travelling-salesman problem, for which genetic algorithms have b een used with considerable success. We find that the results from othe r studies on closely related problems are not directly transferable, a nd although we did find a genetic algorithm that performed well in thi s application it would appear that this algorithm is highly sensitive to any changes in the problem. Moreover, a very simple stochastic algo rithm performed almost as well as our much more complicated and comput er-intensive genetic algorithm and it did so in a fraction of the time . While we do not dispute that genetic algorithms can work on large co mplicated problems, the various modifications and fine-tuning necessar y for good performance tend to be highly problem specific and they are often only arrived at after an exhaustive exploration of possibilitie s. Thus, we would dispute any claim that genetic algorithms are robust in their form and range of applicability.