Hands on Training Module in Rigor and Reproducibility: Promoting Credible Science

摘要

Researchers' recurrent struggles to compare and reproduce published research results prompted the primary federal funding agencies (e.g., NIH, NSF), scientific journals, press, and ethic integrity forums, among others, to discuss scientific experiments' rigor and reproducibility as key factors in credibility of research, and, therefore, as essential elements in teaching and training future scientists. NIH was one of the first agencies to develop a set of guidelines to assure scientific integrity through rigor and reproducibility. The guidelines focus on the rigor required in four areas: reviewing the strengths and weakness of prior research and in developing the scientific premise; developing a research design based on the scientific method to achieve 'robust and unbiased' results; delineating and explaining relevant variables such as, for example, sex, age, etc. that could make a difference in the outcomes; and, authenticating and validating chemical and biological reagents. In view of NIH guidelines, we determined to promote scientific integrity, accountability, and responsibility in imaging science by developing and using a training module in rigor and reproducibility. In the summer of 2018, the module was used in a University of Kansas course for young scientists (i.e., undergraduate, and graduate students, post-docs, and others). The training module was designed to enable current and future scientists to master metabolomics, structural biology, and imaging technologies as well as to authenticate, validate, and replicate data generated. The training module focused on didactic training in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) and the applied aspects of RCR, specifically the 'hard' and 'operational' aspects of metabolomics, structural biology, and imaging technologies used in design and experimental execution, data acquisition, curation (i.e., bioinformatics), quantitation and interpretation. The goals of the course were to 1) contribute to developing a div.