How StressMarq is addressing reproducibility in science

Reproducing experimental results can be frustrating and time-consuming; you can use the same equipment and reagents in the same lab and still fail to obtain consistent results.  If reproducing your own research is tricky, reproducing other scientists’ research can be impossible. A survey conducted by Nature found that over 50% of researchers have failed to reproduce their own experiments and over  70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce other scientists’ experiments.¹  Known as the “reproducibility crisis,” this phenomenon is deeply troubling.

There are many components to this issue, including the pressure for scientists to publish in high-impact journals in order to receive funding.  To eliminate this would require drastic, long-term changes in how academic institutions and scientific journals function. In the short-term, we can start with enabling researchers to find and purchase the same products that have been used in publications. It is much easier to reproduce results when you’re using the same reagents.

When you can’t find the product you need

Research Resource Identifiers

The Resource Identification Initiative seeks to improve research reproducibility by assigning unique identifiers to biological resources.  The pilot project generated Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) for antibodies, model organisms, and software tools.  The project was then expanded to include cell lines.

RRIDs were required to be:²

1. Machine Readable (ie. readable by online search engines)
2. Free to access and generate
3. Consistent across publishers and journals

Additionally, RRIDs must be unique for each product.

How to cite an antibody

StressMarq antibody product pages all contain the field “Cite This Product,” where the RRID is listed with other citation information. When citing other products, look to see if they have RRIDs by searching:

https://scicrunch.org/resources

We hope that by adopting this system, we can help make reagents easier to find and research easier to replicate.

What if a product doesn’t have an RRID? No problem! Just make sure to cite all the relevant information listed here: https://www.stressmarq.com/how-to-cite-a-product/

References

1. nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970
2. www.force11.org/group/resource-identification-initiative