Plan To Replicate 50 High-Impact Cancer Papers Shrinks To Just 18 (sciencemag.org) 29
Five years ago, researchers set out to replicate experiments from 50 high-impact cancer biology papers. Now, due to various challenges relating to a lack of funding and expertise, the project only expects to complete just 18 studies. Science Magazine reports: The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (RP:CP) began in October 2013 as an open effort to test replicability after two drug companies reported they had trouble reproducing many cancer studies. The work was a collaboration with Science Exchange, a company based in Palo Alto, California, that found contract labs to reproduce a few key experiments from each paper. Funding included a $1.3 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, enough for about $25,000 per study. Experiments were expected to take 1 year.
Costs rose and delays ensued as organizers realized they needed more information and materials from the original authors; a decision to have the proposed replications peer reviewed also added time. Organizers whittled the list of papers to 37 in late 2015, then to 29 by January 2017. In the past few months, they decided to discontinue 38% or 11 of the ongoing replications, Errington says. (Elizabeth Iorns, president of Science Exchange, says total costs for the 18 completed studies averaged about $60,000, including two high-priced "outliers.") One reason for cutting off some replications was that it was taking too long to troubleshoot or optimize experiments to get meaningful results... So far, the project has published replication results for 10 of the 18 studies. "Five were mostly repeatable, three were inconclusive, and two studies were negative, but the original findings have been confirmed by other labs," reports Science Magazine. "In fact, many of the initial 50 papers have been confirmed by other groups, as some of the RP:CB's critics have pointed out."
Costs rose and delays ensued as organizers realized they needed more information and materials from the original authors; a decision to have the proposed replications peer reviewed also added time. Organizers whittled the list of papers to 37 in late 2015, then to 29 by January 2017. In the past few months, they decided to discontinue 38% or 11 of the ongoing replications, Errington says. (Elizabeth Iorns, president of Science Exchange, says total costs for the 18 completed studies averaged about $60,000, including two high-priced "outliers.") One reason for cutting off some replications was that it was taking too long to troubleshoot or optimize experiments to get meaningful results... So far, the project has published replication results for 10 of the 18 studies. "Five were mostly repeatable, three were inconclusive, and two studies were negative, but the original findings have been confirmed by other labs," reports Science Magazine. "In fact, many of the initial 50 papers have been confirmed by other groups, as some of the RP:CB's critics have pointed out."
scientific method, meet market competition (Score:2)
Replicating the results of experiments, is of course, the scientific method.
Doing so for about $25K each is not garnering much interest in the scientific community, since so many research and development grants far exceed that budgetary bottleneck, particularly when a directed outcome is encouraged.
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The problem is that they did not plan realistically, $25K to replicate these kind of experiments by an external lab is not doable. They took the best case scenario (what would it cost for the people that already did it once and have all the details solved) and tried to apply it to the worst case scenario (do it again by different people, with different equipment, without lots of necessary information, etc.)
Social media for cancer papers (Score:2)
High-impact cancer papers are distributed on Snapchat. That’s why every interesting new approach that we hear about in this forum disappears and is never seen again.
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I have a cancer paper for you: stop eating sacks of sugar. Cured.
Sentiment is spot on, but stopping the self-destructive behavior now prolly doesn't cure the cancer... stopping before it starts, though, that's a game changer.
Re: cancer paper (Score:2)
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Sugar == blubber == diabetes == organ failure and not cancer. Want to reduce your odds of cancer because yeah it will always be Russian roulette, just a matter of how many chambers are loaded with cancer causing agents, as you get older fewer chambers, same number of bullets. Live in a healthier environment.
Less pollution in you environment, stop burning shit, bad children do that, adults should have stopped at the first opportunity and not try to feed the insane greed of a minority, throw those fuckers in
Causation or cofounding factor ? (Score:2)
Yes, the study found a correlation, but how to interpret that ?
The BMI *provokes* cancer ? (more correctly, that high BMI is a cause that increases cancer risks ?)
For some cancers (like gastro-oesophagal tract) that might be the case (e.g. due to chronic damage by an overflowing stomach, chronic damage to the liver by fat, chronic damage by crystal formation, hormonal disbalance due to the endocrine system getting fucked up, etc.).
But it might be that BMI and cancer happen to appear in the same people due t
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I have a cancer paper for you: stop eating sacks of sugar. Cured.
Don't worry, it's a "self limiting phenomina"... 8-}
Meanwhile some of our best and brightest (Score:2)
I should add (Score:2)
Seems expertise is the number one problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember reading somewhere that the number one reason for the stagnation of quality replication/validation work being done is that the really good researchers don't want to validate somebody else's work, as they won't get any credit for those discoveries... Theyd much rather be performing their own research. That in itself is quite serious. So unless there are fundamental changes in the rewards system these researchers have then the pace of progress in these fields will hardly accelerate.
Different take (Score:1)
I have seen an effect replicated 10 times in my fi (Score:2)