Drug Discovery


3,000 screened and verified contract research organisations (CROs), academic labs and gov- ernment facilities that are available to conduct experiments on the behalf of scientists. While Science Exchange primarily functions as a mar- ketplace for a broad array of researchers, ranging from large biopharmaceutical companies to aca- demic labs, for outsourcing experimental research, it also serves as a unique venue that enables reproducibility initiatives. An important application for clients of Science Exchange is the ability to independently run replication studies by capable laboratories.


Science Exchange has been involved in various reproducibility initiatives, including antibody and reagent validation, the Movember Foundation-Prostate Cancer Foundation Reproducibility Initiative5,6, the Reproducibility Initiative7 and the Gates Foundation 3ie support- ing HIV prevention research validation. Similar to these other initiatives, the RP:CB tapped into the extensive Science Exchange network to use the existing capabilities of experienced and com- pletely independent labs for this large set of reproducibility studies.


Practical components of independent replication


The timeline for the RP:CB replications began upon initial contact with the original authors. The RP:CB Core Team requested comments on the pro- posed protocols, raw data from original experi- ments, as well as reagents for the replications themselves. The types of requested information included vendor and catalogue numbers of specific reagents and specific details about protocols that were not published in the original manuscript. The RP:CB Core Team also requested relevant cell lines, plasmid constructs, peptides or antibodies, when these were available, from the authors of the original study. The goal was to reduce the number of potential sources of variation from the original study as much as possible. The average time to receive protocol information and/or data was 81 (±21) days (Table 1). This two to three-month delay in sharing information and data was typically the result of information decay and personnel changes in the original laboratory. In the interven- ing time between the original publication and our outreach, the corresponding author was often no longer working in the same laboratory and may or may not still have had access to data or reagents. Once both the replicating labs and the original authors had the opportunity to comment on the proposed experimental work, the Registered


Drug Discovery World Winter 2017/18 15


Table I: Timing and cost for the first seven RP:CB replication studies 8


13


9


14


6


16


*N/A in which data and or protocol information was not shared for replication study. Note: Experimental protocols within each replication study may have run concurrently; timing is based on conducting the experiment, not information gathering or review process.


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