Back in 2015; Freedman, Cockburn & Simcoe produced a study (The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research PLOS Biology, June 9, 2015) which concluded that more the half of all preclinical research in the US can not be reproduced! This caught the the attention of many researchers, almost as much as it did the folks in the C-suite.
What are the issues and what can be done?
First and foremost, we have to stop thinking of animal test subjects as widgets. As physically identical as they are, they are distinct organisms; who pocess a range of possible physical and emotional responses. Just as we treat the test subjects as individuals; we must accord the same respect to our research staff and recognize that each person’s performance varies day to day.
Acknowledging this reality, the most obvious path to reduce measurement error is to reduce and regulate the human/animal interactions that are necessary to perform the measurements. This is what TPI set out to do by leveraging the work of the Anesthesiology Lab at UCSD.
Dr. Tony Yaksh and his team at UCSD developed a suite of direct measurement instruments that automated the data collection for flinch and scratch behavior in small animals. TPI has exclusive license to the relevant IP and are making and marketing these devices for interested researchers and research organizations. We are proud to announce that Dr. Yaksh have joined our team!
If you have an interest in better data collection for your life science experiment or wish to chat to see how TPI can help you reduce the noise in your data ; please feel free to reach out to us.