Four factors affecting reproducibility in life science research and how to handle them
Consistency in research experiments is hard to achieve. There are several factors that can affect data reproducibility. Publishing data in high impact journals requires repeating experiments and standardization of techniques and procedures. We summarize 4 major factors for generating robust and reliable data. Reagents As a rule, the brand and catalog numbers of products for a specific experiment or project must be fixed to ensure low variability in the data generated. One must use reagents from reputed brands with citations to maintain credibility of the results. Verifying the quality of the reagents will save both time and effort involved in planning and execution. This can be done by a thorough literature study and checking user reviews before ordering the product. If working with cell culture , the date of opening of cell culture media and its expiry must be labeled and checked before using it. This also applies to other reagents such as FBS, trypsin or PBS, etc. Old reagents ...