{"entity":{"id":"idea-tr2-cell-line-authentication-mandate","kind":"idea","name":"Prove your cell lines are what you say they are, or the paper is not published","aka":[],"tldr":"A large share of cancer research has been done on cells that were mislabelled or contaminated. A cheap DNA fingerprint test can prove identity; journals and funders should require it.","summary":"Cross-contaminated and misidentified cell lines (the ICLAC register lists over 500) continue to be used in thousands of papers. Short tandem repeat profiling costs under a hundred dollars per line. Some journals and NIH recommend authentication; few enforce it. A mandate that every paper and grant using cell lines deposits a recent STR profile matched to Cellosaurus, with funders covering the cost, would close a known, fixable source of irreproducibility.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"ICLAC register of misidentified cell lines","url":"https://iclac.org/databases/cross-contaminations/"},{"label":"Cellosaurus","url":"https://www.cellosaurus.org/"}],"tags":[],"related":["cancer-models","idea-tr2-cell-line-passport"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-reproducibility","b-preclinical-models"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Enforcement at ten major journals and two funders reduces the share of new oncology papers using known misidentified lines from the several percent found in audits to under 0.5% within three years.","rationale":"The problem is fully characterised, the test is cheap and standardised (ANSI/ATCC ASN-0002), and enforcement is the only missing element.","test":"Adopt the mandate at participating journals; audit a random sample of published papers annually for compliance and for use of misidentified lines.","maturity":"early-clinical","actor":"policy","cost":"small","horizonYears":1},"route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-cell-line-authentication-mandate/","neighbours":{"collection":[{"id":"cancer-models","kind":"collection","name":"Cancer Models (PDCM Finder) & HCMI","route":"/collections/cancer-models/"}],"idea":[{"id":"idea-tr2-cell-line-passport","kind":"idea","name":"A digital passport for every cell culture: identity, contamination status, passage number","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-cell-line-passport/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-preclinical-models","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Lab models that fail to predict what happens in patients","route":"/bottlenecks/b-preclinical-models/"},{"id":"b-reproducibility","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Preclinical results do not reproduce","route":"/bottlenecks/b-reproducibility/"}]}}