ideasIdea
Audit animal studies for randomisation and blinding, published by institution
Most mouse studies of cancer drugs do not randomise animals or blind the people measuring tumours, which inflates results. Checking and publishing which institutions do it properly would change behaviour.
The ARRIVE guidelines set minimum reporting standards for animal research, but compliance remains low and unenforced. Systematic reviews show that unblinded, unrandomised animal studies overestimate effects. Funders could commission annual audits of a random sample of animal studies they supported, scoring randomisation, blinding, sample-size justification and reporting, and publish scores by institution.
Hypothesis
Institutions whose scores are published will improve compliance with randomisation and blinding to above 80% within three years, from the 20 to 40% typically found in audits.
Rationale
Public institutional scores worked for clinical trial transparency; animal research has the same structure of diffuse responsibility that public reporting fixes.
What would test it
Audit 500 funded animal studies across 20 institutions; publish; re-audit after two years.
Maturity
early clinical
Who has to act
philanthropy
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
2
Bottlenecks it attacks
- Preclinical results do not reproduce · Fewer than half of landmark cancer biology findings reproduce when someone else tries.
- Preclinical models that do not predict people · Nine in ten cancer drugs that work in mice fail in humans. Our models are the reason.