WIKIMEDIA, JUN SIETAFive papers published in eLife this week (January 19) provide the first results of the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology—a collaborative effort between the Center for Open Science (COS) and Science Exchange that aims to independently replicate experiments from high-profile cancer biology papers. The results reveal that, for an array of technical and other reasons, reproducing published results is challenging.
“This is an extremely important effort. Even though the published results pertain to only a small set of the larger project, the picture is convincing that reproducibility in cancer biology is very difficult to achieve,” said Stanford University School of Medicine’s John Ioannidis, who was not involved with the project. “I see the results not in a negative way . . . but as a reality check and as an opportunity to move in the right direction, which means more transparency, more openness, more detailed documentation of [methodology], and more honesty with ourselves.”
Researchers launched the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology in 2013 with a goal of independently replicating a subset of experiments from 50 of the most impactful cancer biology papers published between 2010 and ...
