Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough?
The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (RPCB) was established to provide evidence about reproducibility in basic and preclinical cancer research, and to identify the factors that influence reproducibility more generally. In this commentary we address some of the scientific, ethical and policy i...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
2021-12-01
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| Series: | eLife |
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| Online Access: | https://elifesciences.org/articles/67527 |
| _version_ | 1811227375971598336 |
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| author | Patrick Bodilly Kane Jonathan Kimmelman |
| author_facet | Patrick Bodilly Kane Jonathan Kimmelman |
| author_sort | Patrick Bodilly Kane |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (RPCB) was established to provide evidence about reproducibility in basic and preclinical cancer research, and to identify the factors that influence reproducibility more generally. In this commentary we address some of the scientific, ethical and policy implications of the project. We liken the basic and preclinical cancer research enterprise to a vast 'diagnostic machine' that is used to determine which clinical hypotheses should be advanced for further development, including clinical trials. The results of the RPCB suggest that this diagnostic machine currently recommends advancing many findings that are not reproducible. While concerning, we believe that more work needs to be done to evaluate the performance of the diagnostic machine. Specifically, we believe three questions remain unanswered: how often does the diagnostic machine correctly recommend against advancing real effects to clinical testing?; what are the relative costs to society of false positive and false negatives?; and how well do scientists and others interpret the outputs of the machine? |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T09:41:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cf46824b5e994a08a988e72e11f468d5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2050-084X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T09:41:29Z |
| publishDate | 2021-12-01 |
| publisher | eLife Sciences Publications Ltd |
| record_format | Article |
| series | eLife |
| spelling | doaj.art-cf46824b5e994a08a988e72e11f468d52022-12-22T03:38:04ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2021-12-011010.7554/eLife.67527Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough?Patrick Bodilly Kane0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1050-570XJonathan Kimmelman1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1614-6779Studies in Translation, Ethics and Medicine, Biomedical Ethics Unit, McGill University, Montréal, CanadaStudies in Translation, Ethics and Medicine, Biomedical Ethics Unit, McGill University, Montréal, CanadaThe Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (RPCB) was established to provide evidence about reproducibility in basic and preclinical cancer research, and to identify the factors that influence reproducibility more generally. In this commentary we address some of the scientific, ethical and policy implications of the project. We liken the basic and preclinical cancer research enterprise to a vast 'diagnostic machine' that is used to determine which clinical hypotheses should be advanced for further development, including clinical trials. The results of the RPCB suggest that this diagnostic machine currently recommends advancing many findings that are not reproducible. While concerning, we believe that more work needs to be done to evaluate the performance of the diagnostic machine. Specifically, we believe three questions remain unanswered: how often does the diagnostic machine correctly recommend against advancing real effects to clinical testing?; what are the relative costs to society of false positive and false negatives?; and how well do scientists and others interpret the outputs of the machine?https://elifesciences.org/articles/67527Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biologyreplicationpreclinical researchclinical trialsfalse negativesreproducibility |
| spellingShingle | Patrick Bodilly Kane Jonathan Kimmelman Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough? eLife Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology replication preclinical research clinical trials false negatives reproducibility |
| title | Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough? |
| title_full | Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough? |
| title_fullStr | Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough? |
| title_short | Is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough? |
| title_sort | is preclinical research in cancer biology reproducible enough |
| topic | Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology replication preclinical research clinical trials false negatives reproducibility |
| url | https://elifesciences.org/articles/67527 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT patrickbodillykane ispreclinicalresearchincancerbiologyreproducibleenough AT jonathankimmelman ispreclinicalresearchincancerbiologyreproducibleenough |