Authors:
Eduardo Oliveira
1
;
Rafael Z. Frantz
1
;
Carlos Molina-Jiménez
2
;
Thiago Heck
1
;
Sandro Sawicki
1
and
Fabricia Roos-Frantz
1
Affiliations:
1
More Innovation Space, Unijuí University, Rua do Comércio, 3000, Universitário, Ijuí/RS, 98700-000, Brazil
;
2
Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge. CB2 1TN, Cambridge, U.K.
Keyword(s):
Blockchain, Distributed Ledger, Data Analysis, Decentralised Technology, Experiments Irreproducibility, Experiments Reproducibility, DApps, DStorage, IPFS, Smart Contracts.
Abstract:
Preclinical research is crucial for the advancement of life sciences. The use of experimental animal models in basic health sciences historically helped humanity to understand the pathological mechanisms of diseases and to develop therapeutic strategies, medicines and vaccines. Progress in this direction depends, to a large degree, on experimentation. Therefore, it is highly desirable that research experiments conducted on preclinical research are reproducible. Regrettably, a large number of experiments are not reproducible. Factors leading to irreproducible research on preclinical studies fall into four major categories: Biological reagents and reference materials, study design, data analysis and reporting and laboratory protocols. The data analysis and reporting category concentrates 25.5% of the total factors. Is estimated that $7.19 billions of the total research budget is funding irreproducible experiments. It is widely acknowledged that sharing experimental data between differe
nt institutions and cooperative researchers worldwide helps in experiment reproducibility which results in science and technology acceleration and innovation. Data sharing involves several data operations: The researcher needs to collect the data, protect it to prevent accidental and malicious deletion and corruption and make it available to colleagues, possibly, to the general public. The execution of these operations is cumbersome and error prone unless appropriate technology is used. This paper suggests and explores the use of blockchain to improve the reproducibility of experiments.A blockchain is a decentralised database that offers several properties that can be used advantageously in the collection, storage and sharing of experimental data, for instance, it prevents deletion.
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