Alarms about the shortcomings of many cell lines and their deleterious impact on experiment reproducibility and the scientific record have been ringing for over 50 years. Today, even though there is consensus among scientists that misidentified and contaminated cell lines are a significant problem, some labs are reluctant to authenticate their cell lines. But mistakes are being made and they are piling up. In 2015, Christopher Korch, Ph.D., from the University of Colorado, reported that nearly 5,800 articles in 1,182 journals may have confused HeLa for HEp-2, and another 1,336 articles in 271 journals may have mixed up HeLa with INT 407. This documentary discusses the concerns surrounding cell line identification and what can be done to alleviate the problem.
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"It's time to shake the cage of complacency about misidentified cell lines. New documentary from Biocompare explains why it's a problem and what to do about it. My favorite moment is the interview with Stanley Gartler, who discovered the HeLa problem in the 1960s."
-Amanda Capes-Davis, ICLAC
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"I hope this brief documentary will help change the complacent attitude of the research community about this problem so that it can be eradicated. This change is urgently needed not just because it is becoming a requirement of journals and granting agencies, but because it is necessary for discovering meaningful and reproducible science."
-Christopher Korch, University of Colorado Denver
Action slowly being taken by major stakeholders.
According to Bob Geraghty, biorepository and cell services head at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge ...