PEERS - an open science "Platform for the Exchange of Experimental Research Standards" in biomedicine | bioRxiv

Laboratory workflows and preclinical models have become increasingly diverse and complex. Confronted with the dilemma of assessing a multitude of information with ambiguous relevance for their specific experiments, scientists run the risk of overlooking critical factors that can influence the planning, conduct and results of studies and that should have been considered a priori. Negligence of such crucial information may result in sub-optimal study design and study execution, bringing into question the validity of generated outcomes. As a corollary, a lot of resources are wasted on biomedical research that turns out to be irreproducible and not sufficiently robust for further project development. To address this problem, we present PEERS (Platform for the Exchange of Experimental Research Standards), an open-access online platform that is built to aid scientists in determining which experimental factors and variables are most likely to affect the outcome of a specific test, model or assay and therefore ought to be considered during the design, execution and reporting stages.