Posted on 04/01/2012 11:11:56 AM PDT by Olog-hai
A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer—a high proportion of them from university labs—are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.
During a decade as head of global cancer research at Amgen, C. Glenn Begley identified 53 "landmark" publications—papers in top journals, from reputable labs—for his team to reproduce. Begley sought to double-check the findings before trying to build on them for drug development.
Result: 47 of the 53 could not be replicated. He described his findings in a commentary piece published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
"It was shocking," said Begley, now senior vice president of privately held biotechnology company TetraLogic, which develops cancer drugs. "These are the studies the pharmaceutical industry relies on to identify new targets for drug development. But if you're going to place a $1 million or $2 million or $5 million bet on an observation, you need to be sure it's true. As we tried to reproduce these papers, we became convinced you can't take anything at face value."
The failure to win "the war on cancer" has been blamed on many factors, from the use of mouse models that are irrelevant to human cancers to risk-averse funding agencies. But recently a new culprit has emerged: too many basic scientific discoveries, done in animals or cells growing in lab dishes and meant to show the way to a new drug, are wrong. …
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
And we KNOW what happens when a society/nation loses it's morals and discipline.
“At least a third of published papers are never cited by other researchers. “
Actually, it’s more like 50% are never cited even once.
I was experienced the same concern-the collapse of Western Medicine.
Too...much...information
—Too...much...information—
It’s worth it. Seriously.
Sounds like the “global warming” scam isn’t the only area where science as been corrupted by grant-greedy “scientists”.
I haven’t looked at cancer research the same since the early ‘70s when I read an article (in Penthouse, believe it or not) called ‘The Solid Gold Cancer Train’.
There is no incentive to find out it was wrong.”
IMO, repetition is the only standard for credibility.
Worthy of a ping list.
Worthy of another ping list, or two. :-)
Having written a couple of books that involve controversial topics in environmental regulation, needless to say, I have had to apply a screening method to what I regard as solid v. questionable or even intentionally bogus science. The principal criterion has been: If you can take the findings and produce a profitable product therewith, it’s probably solid. As a result, I tend to consider industry data more reliable than university findings.
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