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Advances in science depend on researchers being able to reproduce the findings of their peers, thus providing a solid platform from which to move forward with new lines of scientific inquiry. Yet for a variety of reasons, irreproducibility appears to be a growing problem in experimental research. Now funding agencies and research journals are crafting guidelines to ensure that published studies are well designed, well reported, and better able to generate reproducible results.    © Jim Frazier    Media reports have singled out a number of egregious cases of irreproducibility, including reports published in Nature earlier this year indicating that adult stem cells would become pluripotent if submerged in a mild acid bath.1,2 The findings were widely criticized after scientists were unable to reproduce the results in their own laboratories.3 Subsequently, the first author agreed to retract the reports.4 In another widely publicized example, the biopharmaceutical company Amgen claimed it could reproduce just 6 of 53 studies that were considered landmarks in basic cancer research, despite close cooperation with the original scientists to make sure the same experimental protocols were used.5  Experts blame the irreproducibility problem on a number of factors, including inadequate reporting of the methods used in published research studies. Mounting evidence links poor methods descriptions with overstated findings,6,7,8,9,10 but in other cases faulty conclusions can be attributed to poor study design. In particular, inadequate randomization and blinding can introduce biases that render a study incapable of accurately testing its thesis.11  Irreproducibility is especially problematic if it plagues findings that lead to human clinical trials or to regulations and policies that could affect public health. One such instance was documented by researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), who discovered that patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis had been enrolled in a clinical trial founded on inadequate preclinical data.  According to NINDS director Story Landis, the patients weren’t doing nearly as well as hoped on the test treatment, a broad-spectrum antibiotic called minocycline. When NINDS researchers took a closer look at the preclinical studies upon which the trial was predicated, they found the authors had not reported whether the studies were randomized or blinded. Furthermore, the work was done using small numbers of animals. “That was a wake-up call,” Landis says. “Human clinical trials need to be based on solid preclinical findings.”

Research Wranglers: Initiatives to Improve Reproducibility of Study Findings