to my friends researching cancer

While I was at the mathematical biology conference (before I heard the news about my friend's diagnosis of metastatic cancer), I saw that one of the posters presented was from a graduate student working on better ways to sample the esophagus when screening for esophageal cancer.  I immediately headed to her poster.  She was surprised that I knew about the cancer - most people, she said, had no idea.  I made a point to tell her that her work was important, and that it meant a lot to all of us.

A recent Nature article studying the reproducibility of preclinical data found that only 6 of 53 (11%) of studies were reproducible.  Furthermore, the status or impact factor the journal in which they were published had no correlation with reproducibility.  "Unquestionably, a significant contributor to failure in oncology trials is the quality of published preclinical data. Drug development relies heavily on the literature, especially with regards to new targets and biology."

Not being an experimental biologist myself, I asked one of the MD/PhDs in my program who had recently finished graduate school what he thought. He told me he believed it - it was tremendously difficult to reproducible data, even when doing everything exactly alike. He joked about another student in his lab that "only did experiments once" and if they worked, they worked.

So, a message to my friends who are experimental biologists, or for those thinking about going into science: what you do matters - not just to you, not just to getting your PhD or grant, obtaining tenure or impressing other scientists. This is a life-and-death matter. You know why? My dear friend may enter a clinical trial based on your research - and so might you, someday, and so might I. I hope you did good science, and that you were more interested in finding out how things really work than being right or publishing a high-profile paper. Because we have to trust you now.