Drug Discovery
Practicalities of conducting REPLICATION STUDIES
The first results for the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology offer insights into the time and cost of conducting replication studies in preclinical cancer biology. While many agree that developing a therapeutic should not be pursued unless grounded in reproducible preclinical results, the costs of replication have, to date, not been considered when such studies are funded. With this first estimate of the resources required, the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology lays the foundation for developing a research funding structure that may provide appropriate incentives for completing replication studies. Unlike other assessments of reproducibility, the results of the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology are an open, growing dataset of systematic experiments. This open format is necessary for constructive discussion of reproducibility among researchers, industry leaders, policy makers, funding agencies and regulatory agencies that will shape the way preclinical research is done.
By Dr Nicole Perfito, Dr Rachel Tsui and Dr Elizabeth Iorns
R
ecently, the cost of irreproducible research, especially in preclinical biology, has gar- nered a huge amount of attention. Irreproducible research expends financial and per- sonnel resources and makes it difficult to differen- tiate truly significant advancements from irrepro- ducible findings. Freedman (2015)1 estimates that $28 billion is spent on preclinical research that yields results that cannot be reproduced. Still unknown is the cost of performing the inde- pendent replication studies themselves, to avoid wasted resources and to determine which scientific findings are best suited for development of novel therapeutics. The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (RP:CB) is a collaboration between Science Exchange and the Center for Open Science (COS) to independently replicate key experiments from high-impact, published cancer biology studies2 and was initiated in response to multiple reports pub- lished from the pharmaceutical industry indicating that more than 70% of published findings could not be reproduced3,4. The first set of five replica-
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tion studies were recently published in this edition of eLife (
https://elifesciences.org/collections/repro- ducibility-project-cancer-biology), and represent a major landmark for the reproducibility discussion. These are the first replications to generate an open dataset that can be used to examine the rate of reproducibility in this field, and to study factors associated with the reproducibility of experimental results. The project also gives insight into the time and costs of undertaking independent replication studies. The goal of the current commentary is to use this first sample of studies to discuss the prac- ticalities of conducting these independent replica- tions and the most common roadblocks that have affected the time to conduct them.
Science Exchange and independent replication
One of the key factors determining the validity of the RP:CB was the use of highly-qualified scien- tists to perform the replication studies. Science Exchange manages a network of more than
Drug Discovery World Winter 2017/18
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