Is cancer biology research reproducible? After a decade of work, the answer still isn’t clear
Replication is something of a litmus test for scientific truth, and cancer biologists at the Center for Open Science wanted to see just how many of cancer’s most influential experiments stood up to it. So, for nearly a decade, they worked their way, step-by-step, through 50 experiments from 23 studies toward an answer — but like cancer research writ large, what they found is complicated.
In two new studies published Tuesday in eLife, the center found signs of trouble: 59% of the experiments couldn’t be replicated. Experiments that were replicable had effect sizes 85% smaller on average than the original studies, suggesting the studies’ conclusions may be far dimmer than first thought.
