Good laboratory practice: preventing introduction of bias at the bench

Malcolm R. Macleod
Marc Fisher, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Victoria O'Collins
Emily S. Sena
Ulrich Dirnagl
Philip M.W. Bath
Alistair Buchan
H. Bart van der Worp
Richard Traystman
Kazuo Minematsu
Geoffrey A. Donnan
David W. Howells

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: As a research community, we have failed to demonstrate that drugs which show substantial efficacy in animal models of cerebral ischemia can also improve outcome in human stroke. Summary of Review- Accumulating evidence suggests this may be due, at least in part, to problems in the design, conduct and reporting of animal experiments which create a systematic bias resulting in the overstatement of neuroprotective efficacy.

CONCLUSIONS: Here, we set out a series of measures to reduce bias in the design, conduct and reporting of animal experiments modeling human stroke.