elizabethiorns

We are attempting to solve this by identifying and rewarding reproducible research (www.reproducibilityinitiative.org). However, it has been incredibly difficult to get funding to conduct the validation studies due to the obsession of funding "novel" results, rather than funding the replication studies required to identify reproducible research. Funders need to step up to solve this problem.

Just found out you can do it for your dog's DNA as well!

I totally agree with you and congratulations on creating such a widely used and transformative product, I hope that in time biology will also adopt the arXiv model.

I also agree with your point about reproducibility - it is another passion of mine which I have written about here: http://blog.scienceexchange.com/2012/04/the-need-for-reprodu...

I totally agree regarding the decline of universities. In particular I think the research side will be the first to shift away from universities; at least with education you are essentially paying for a brand name which has inherent value. With research, the principle investigator writes the grant to pay their own salary, the salaries of their graduate students and postdocs, and their equipment. The university then takes almost all the scientists IP and charges "indirect costs" equivalent to more than 50% of the grant to supply "Facilities and Administration" - which is what exactly? Lights, building space, and a whole lot of bureaucracy.

Already, some really innovative initiatives are getting around this problem. The Pasadena Bioscience Collaborative offers lab space and equipment for ~$1,000 per month (no contract required!) and the EMBARK program administers scientists grants and encourages them to outsource experiments to core facility specialists (while providing access to a basic shared lab for those experiments that can't be easily outsourced). Both initiatives offer ways for scientists to avoid high indirect costs and burdensome admin - and importantly the scientists retain 100% of their IP!

These initiatives are the way of the future - it's hard to see how big, inefficient universities will be able to attract the top talent for much longer.

As an university researcher (faculty at University of Miami) I agree that efficiency of spending is very important - what is interesting is that researchers are often unaware that by making use of economies of scale that exist at specialized core facilities it is often cheaper than conducting experiments in house (a good example is cloning).

In some fields salaries might comprise the majority of lab costs but in biology this is not the case - experimental costs which can be spent as the researcher sees fit comprise the majority of costs. These costs can be outsourced to pay core facilities (currently $2B is spent outsourcing experiments to core facilities annually in the US).

While i agree that it is possible for researchers to establish where specialized equipment resides by reading papers and chatting with colleagues at conferences this is obviously inefficient and an incomplete record of potential providers. A centralized marketplace is a more efficient method for identifying providers.

The current system for evaluating a scientists reputation and integrity is hardly perfect - it is estimated that fewer than 50% of data in published papers can be reproduced (http://lifescivc.com/2011/03/academic-bias-biotech-failures/). By creating a marketplace that has feedback and reputation it might be possible to actually improve basic "integrity" in scientific research

Actually I think this has the potential to increase the connections between different fields because it will truly incentivize collaborations through a market mechanism rather than the bartering system which currently exists (i.e I'll trade you conducting this expt for authorship).

The way I envision it working is that the person who has the grand idea obtains a grant and then breaks it up into microgrants which are outsourced to specialists to conduct the expts efficiently. The results are then combined to obtain a broad understanding of the particular question being asked by the grant holder. The broad results can be communicated to all participants.

Hi Jess - Science Exchange allows scientists to outsource individual experiments to specialist labs and facilities. For example gene expression profiling can be outsourced to specialist microarray providers. This is becoming a bigger and bigger issue as technology advances and scientists are forced to become more specialized.