OnCo
ideasIdea

Barcode every reagent lot so batch effects can be traced across experiments and labs

Results can change when a supplier changes a batch of serum, antibody or growth factor. Recording which batch was used in each experiment, in a shared ledger, would let these effects be spotted.

Lot-to-lot variation in serum, media supplements, antibodies and enzymes is a recognised but untracked source of irreproducibility. A shared, machine-readable ledger of reagent lots (vendor, catalogue and lot number, hashed) linked to experiments and publications, populated by lab inventory software and vendor APIs, would let batch effects be detected across the community and would let vendors be held accountable for problem lots.

Hypothesis
Ledger analysis will identify at least one widely used reagent lot associated with anomalous results across multiple laboratories within two years, and its identification will explain a documented replication failure.
Rationale
Supply-chain traceability is standard in manufacturing and food safety; research reagents have no equivalent despite comparable stakes.
What would test it
Implement lot capture in two inventory tools across twenty labs; link to published experiments; search for lot-associated anomalies.
Maturity
speculative
Who has to act
engineering
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
2
Bottlenecks it attacks

Connected

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