To Improve Reproducibility, Do-It-Yourself, Daniel Klionsky Tells Researchers

Research guidelines can improve reproducibility in a field by standardizing reagents and protocols says Daniel Klionsky in a new MBoC perspective. Photo by Amy.

In 2012, Daniel Klionsky pulled off the scientific equivalent of successfully herding cats. He convinced 2,400 of his colleagues in the field of autophagy to sign on as co-authors of a report proposing standardized research guidelines. Klionsky, an ASCB member and professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, had long feared that his rapidly growing field would eventually face a reproducibility crisis because of the wide range of standards, protocols, and definitions among autophagy researchers.

Appealing to the autophagy community to collaborate, Klionsky et al. published a first set of guidelines in 2008, which were updated and expanded in 2012. Now Klionsky is taking the next step. In a new Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC) perspective, Klionsky wants every field or subspecialty in cell and molecule research biology to write its own detailed set of guidelines. In short, Klionsky wants you to solve the reproducibility crisis.

In his article, Klionsky lays out five do-it-yourself steps to producing guidelines in your field including how to build community support and what to consider when writing standards. To help the community stick to a unified nomenclature, Klionsky recommends building a glossary that includes standardized protein and gene names. He also gives practical suggestions for managing the logistics of having so many contributors. For example, Klionsky tracked email correspondence in Excel and identified relevant researchers in EndNote.
ASCB’s 2014 Report on Reproducibility singled out Klionsky’s efforts in building the 2008 guidelines as a best practice example of improving reproducibility from within a field. The ASCB Reproducibility Task Force, which issued that report, has called on other fields to “support the development and dissemination of community-based standards” along the lines of the autophagy community’s work. At the invitation of the MBoC editors, Klionsiy now lays out his five guidelines and other tips. “Reproducibility is much more likely to be attained within a field if the researchers agree on the methodology and if they follow best practices based on a consensus of a majority of the people carrying out these experiments,“ Klionsky writes.