# An independent replication institute that re-tests key preclinical cancer findings before trials

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-independent-replication-institute/  
OnCo record `idea-moon-independent-replication-institute` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Many cancer lab results cannot be reproduced, and trials built on them fail. Fund an independent institute that re-runs important experiments before anyone spends millions on humans.

## Summary

The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology found that most high-profile preclinical results replicated only partially or not at all. Trials and companies are built on unreplicated findings. The proposal is a funded, independent replication institute with standing capacity in the common cancer model systems, which re-tests findings prioritised by their influence on planned trials or investments, publishes all results, and issues a replication grade that funders, investors and ethics committees can require before first-in-human studies.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: Replication grading before phase 1 reduces the rate of early trials terminated for lack of efficacy and shifts investment toward findings that replicate.
- Rationale: Independent replication is the cheapest insurance against the most expensive failures; it is not done because nobody owns it and careers do not reward it.
- Proposed test: Grade 50 findings underlying planned trials; follow the trials for three years and compare outcomes of high- and low-grade findings.
- Maturity: early-clinical
- Actor: philanthropy

## Sources

- Bottleneck evidence (Preclinical results do not reproduce): Errington et al., Investigating the replicability of preclinical cancer biology (eLife 2021): https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71601

## Connected records

- technologies: [Patient-derived organoids](https://onco.cc/technologies/organoids/), [Patient-derived xenografts](https://onco.cc/technologies/pdx-models/)
- bottlenecks: [Preclinical results do not reproduce](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-reproducibility/), [The valley of death between lab and product](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-translational-valley/)

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