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Here's what we can do about research using the wrong cell lines
- tokenadult 11y agoThis guest post on the Retraction Watch website is a follow-up to "Hundreds of researchers are using the wrong cells. That’s a major problem"[1] by Amanda Capes-Davis, chair of the International Cell Line Authentication Committee (ICLAC). Previous submissions to Hacker News have mentioned that misidentifying human cell samples used in medical research can skew research results and make them unreliable. [1] http://retractionwatch.com/2015/12/08/hela-is-the-tip-of-the-contamination-iceberg-guest-post-from-cell-culture-scientist/ http://retractionwatch.com/2015/12/08/hela-is-the-tip-of-the...
- danieltillett 11y agoIt is not only human cell lines where this is a problem - microbial strains and plasmids are notorious for being wrong or contaminated. My personal experience is less than half the strains I have been given and less than a 1/4 of the plasmids actually are what they claim.