ST. LOUIS, May 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/
-- Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL) a leading
life science and high technology company, today announced a
$50,000 product donation to the
Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, a large-scale initiative
to replicate key findings from recent high-impact papers in the
field of cancer biology. The project is a collaboration between the
online research marketplace Science Exchange, the non-profit Center
for Open Science and the open-access journal eLife. The goal of the
project is to identify variables in the current scientific process
that affect research outcomes and to promote open practices that
have a sustainable impact on the culture of research.
In December, Sigma-Aldrich released its 2014 State of
Translational Research Survey Report, which found that only 22
percent of translational researchers had complete success in the
last year reproducing other labs' published work. The
Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology aims to set a standard of
best practices that maximize reproducibility and facilitate an
accurate accumulation of knowledge, enabling potentially impactful
findings to be effectively built upon by the scientific
community.
"Sigma-Aldrich is committed to helping the scientific community
address a serious issue in academic research," said Amanda Halford, Vice President of
Sigma-Aldrich's Academic Research Business. "Science that
cannot be replicated delays breakthroughs and ultimately affects
patient outcomes."
With support from Sigma-Aldrich, Science Exchange and its
supporters hope to achieve this goal by independently replicating
key experimental findings in the field. The group plans to
replicate key experiments from each of the 50 most impactful cancer
biology studies published between 2010-2012, according to best
practices for replication established by the Center for Open
Science and others.
"Science Exchange provides easy access to the world's top
scientific service providers. We're proud to leverage our network
of experts to rigorously conduct the replication studies for the
Reproducibility Project," said Elizabeth
Iorns, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Science Exchange. "In
order to ensure the robustness of our replication results, we need
our labs to use the highest-quality products. That's why we're
excited about our collaboration with Sigma-Aldrich, whose superb
products will help us ensure the fidelity and accuracy of our
experiments."
To meet the quality needs and requirements for translational
researchers to conduct accurate experiments, Sigma-Aldrich has more
than 700 employees across 37 countries dedicated to quality control
systems. Additionally, within its global network, the Company
boasts 44 quality control laboratories and nine quality
certifications. As primary standards, Sigma-Aldrich complies with
and maintains quality assurance qualifications of cGLP, cGMP, cGDP,
ISO, SafeBridge and USDA. This commitment to quality enables the
Company to provide the most validated reagents in the industry
including product lines such as the MISSON® shRNA
offering, Prestige Antibodies®, validated CRISPRs, and
ECACC® cell lines.
To download a copy of the State of Translational Research 2014
Survey Report and learn more about Sigma-Aldrich's offerings to
help address irreproducibility, visit
sigmaaldrich.com/Translational-Survey.
To visually learn more about ways to address the reproducibility
gap, visit
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/content/dam/sigma-aldrich/docs/Sigma-Aldrich/General_Information/1/addressing-the-reproducibiliy-gap.pdf.
About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich, a
leading Life Science and Technology company focused human health
and safety, manufactures and distributes 250,000 chemicals,
biochemicals and other essential products to more than 1.4 million
customers globally in research and applied labs as well as in
industrial and commercial markets. With three distinct
business units - Research, Applied and SAFC Commercial -
Sigma-Aldrich is committed to enabling science to improve the
quality of life. The Company operates in 37 countries, has
approximately 9,300 employees worldwide and had sales of
$2.79 billion in 2014. For more
information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at
www.sigma-aldrich.com.
Sigma-Aldrich, Sigma, MISSION
and Prestige Antibodies are trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Co, LLC
registered in the US and other countries. ECAAC is a registered
trademark of Public Health England.
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SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich