Improving the Ethics of Biomedical Research - PLOS Biology Update NOT potluck A. Williams

PLOS Biology published Improving the trustworthiness, usefulness, and ethics of biomedical research through an innovative and comprehensive institutional initiative by Strech et al on February 11th, 2020.

This article was published roughly three years after the QUEST (Quality-Ethics-Open Science-Translation) Center was originally founded in 2017. QUEST is part of The Berlin Institute of Health and was created in response to growing concerns about the reproducibility, transparency, and ethics of research studies. This article was written in order for the institution to disseminate the methods used to oversee bioethics in local research facilities and laboratories, show their progress after three years, and encourage other institutions around the world to organize ways to incentivize their local scientists to reduce bio-waste and increase transparency and reproducibility of results.

One of the methods that was successful in accomplishing their goal to increase transparency and reduce waste was to incentivize local scientists to publish null/negative results with a cash stipend. QUEST offered a 1,000 euro bonus to scientists who published their null results, a common issue brought up by the Ethics and Professional Practices Fall of 2019 class. When scientists are discouraged from publishing negative results, it causes other scientists to waste time, money, and resources working on methods and experiments that already have been shown not to work but were never published and therefore unknown. QUEST also has an extensive site for creating online resources for scientists around the world to help them find open source data as well as publish their own data for other scientists to see (https://osf.io/kqr5y/).

I found it fitting that this paper came out the day we discussed ELSI in class and found it to be a positive contribution to how this field is progressing. One of the discussion questions dealt with how much institutions or government agencies should regulate the dissemination of results. Personally, I think QUEST is putting its time and monetary resources towards critical issues, not just in the field of genetics but in the broader scope of biology as well, such as reproducibility, open-access transparency of data, and the encouragement of publishing negative results in order to curb the waste of time and resources instead of restricting what types of research labs are able to publish. I think its important for institutions such as these to be vigilant on growing ethical concerns in this field while incorporating the opinions and expertise of international expert and local researchers.

-Alexis Williams


https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000576