Comment by pcrh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pcrh | Hacker News Reader

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I think this will be a very valuable service for small biotechs. It would improve the value of their patents and increase chances of getting further funding.

As an experienced scientist myself, I can say there is plenty of scope for misunderstanding and misinterpretation, no matter how careful the original authors were. So I only hope that there will be some (maybe blinded) mechanism for communication between the original researchers and those replicating the published findings, in the event of the "usual" complications.

Also, who would do this replication? Would some of it be outsourced to academic labs with the requisite experience? Advanced findings often depend on advanced techniques. Outsourcing could be problematic, politically, since Big Shot No.1 might not be too interested in shooting down his pal, Alpha-MD-PhD.

Thank you for the support!

To clarify, the validation studies will be matched to core resource facilities and commercial research organizations, who specialize in conducting certain experiments on a fee for service basis. As they are paid upon completion of a service, regardless of outcome, we feel they are the solution to many of the misaligned incentives in academic research.

With respect to communication between the original authors and those conducting the validation, we definitely agree there needs to be some degree of communication, given the complexities of research. We will originally match a researcher to their provider in a blind fashion, so they have no choice in who conducts their study. But once a provider is selected, they can communicate with one another in explaining the methodology, experiments, etc.

It's probably a bit late to respond to this... However, given that this work is likely only to be undertaken when the stakes are high, I would think that blinded communication between the original researchers and those replicating the work would be a good idea. If they are going to shoot it down, they probably don't want the original people to know that they did so.

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