{"entity":{"id":"idea-tr2-reference-compound-panels","kind":"idea","name":"Every drug screen includes standard reference compounds whose performance is published","aka":[],"tldr":"Drug sensitivity results for the same cell line and drug differ substantially between large screens. Every published cancer drug screen should include a defined panel of reference compounds with published expected activity ranges per reference cell line, reported in a standard format, so results from different labs can be calibrated against each other.","summary":"Drug sensitivity results for the same cell line and drug differ substantially between large screens (the CCLE versus GDSC discordance). A defined panel of reference compounds (with expected potency ranges per reference cell line) included in every published screen, and reported in a standard format, would allow cross-study calibration and reveal systematic differences in assay conditions.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Bottleneck evidence (Preclinical results do not reproduce): Errington et al., Investigating the replicability of preclinical cancer biology (eLife 2021)","url":"https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71601"}],"tags":[],"related":["depmap","idea-tr2-cell-line-passport"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["functional-drug-testing","crispr-screens"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-reproducibility","b-preclinical-models"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Including reference panels will let discordant screens be reconciled by calibration, reducing cross-study potency disagreement by at least half for the drugs and lines covered.","rationale":"Clinical laboratories use internal standards in every run; preclinical pharmacology mostly does not, and the resulting variance has been quantified.","test":"Define the panel; run it in five laboratories under their standard conditions; test whether calibration reconciles their results on a shared set of new compounds.","maturity":"speculative","actor":"research","cost":"small","horizonYears":2},"route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-reference-compound-panels/","neighbours":{"collection":[{"id":"depmap","kind":"collection","name":"DepMap (Cancer Dependency Map)","route":"/collections/depmap/"}],"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/"},{"id":"idea-tr2-reference-model-panels","kind":"idea","name":"Shared reference organoid and PDX panels that every lab can test against","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-reference-model-panels/"}],"technology":[{"id":"crispr-screens","kind":"technology","name":"CRISPR functional genomics","route":"/technologies/crispr-screens/"},{"id":"functional-drug-testing","kind":"technology","name":"Functional (ex vivo) drug testing","route":"/technologies/functional-drug-testing/"}],"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/"}]}}