The internet is changing how we buy everything, with most of us now spending a significant amount of time researching products online via supplier websites, online forums and digital marketplaces before we buy. Scientific tools and reagents are no different. As well as getting access to product information, we can now use impartial reviews written by other scientists to make better, more informed decisions. In this week’s blog post, we discuss the importance of scientific reagent reviews in more detail and provide insights into how you can get involved.
An active community of reviewers is beneficial to everyone. The reader gets access to impartial opinion on the best reagent for a given application, while the reviewer can position themselves as an expert in a given field (potentially attracting new collaborators and partners). In a survey conducted by TEOM Market Research in 2014, almost all (96%) of the scientists surveyed said that product reviews are important and influence their decision on which scientific products and research tools to purchase.
How reagent reviews enable effective life science research
On top of informing a potential buyer of the pros and cons of a particular product, online reviews often provide a direct link back to the peer-review papers that have featured them. This rich source of user-generated data allows researchers to easily avoid or troubleshoot problems, saving them time, money and resources. What’s more, as further reviews are left for the same product, it provides real insight into which applications the reagent is best suited for, whether it’s an antibody, cell line, mouse model or genetic construct.
Of these examples, one field where online reviews have already proven really helpful is antibodies. An article titled ‘Antibody Anarachy; A call to order’ appeared in Nature in 2014 and discussed the importance of good quality, reliable antibody reviews from named sources. Monya Baker, the author, summarised a paper by Andrew Bradbury and Andreas Plückthun noting that “Losses from purchasing poorly characterized antibodies have been estimated at $800 million per year, not counting the impact of false conclusions, uninterpretable (or misinterpreted) experiments, wasted patient samples and fruitless research time.” She suggested that good reviews could solve these problems and listed several web portals that help researchers select antibodies based on user experiences.
How to write a constructive review of a scientific reagent
Reviews are only useful if they provide constructive, useful, unbiased information, designed to include enough detail to add value. When leaving a review, you should also add your name and institution, so that others can see that it was left by a practising scientist. This makes readers more likely to trust the review.
If you want to provide a constructive, informative review on a scientific reagent, we recommend the following:
- Ask yourself what you’d like to know if you were the buyer
- Include only relevant details and be sure to include the experimental applications/conditions you have tested
- Try to include some data to support your conclusions
- Offer yourself up for validation
- State caveats like variables that might alter effectiveness
- Note that your review has a sample size of 1 (you!)
- Provide balance i.e. other side of story
Many online portals hosting reviews of research tools exist, some of which are listed here:
- 1DegreeBio – an independent marketplace for Life Science products with user reviews and community ratings.
- Antibodypedia – a searchable database of antibodies against human proteins with reviews.
- Antibodyresource.com –resource for both antibody customers and suppliers, with reviews
- Biocompare - free product reviews, webinars and videos.
- Chemicalprobes.org – a wiki-like site that recommends appropriate chemical probes for biological targets, provides guidance on their use, and documents their limitations
- F1000 – a resource to write and publish life science research inviting peer review
- Paper Critic– review platform for research publications (Mendeley plugin)
- Peerage of Science – Pre-publication peer review and publishing for scientific articles
- One World Lab - brings vendors together in a single place and offers low-cost, validation size aliquots for comparison and review
- SelectScience - promotes scientists and their work and provides impartial opinion on laboratory equipment and techniques
- Ximbio – upload your own reagents and peer review reagents you have used