The research tools you create can help accelerate life science research, even if they don’t have a clinical or drug development potential. Translating your research tool ideas, provides multiple advantages to both you and other scientists worldwide, such as providing a new source of income to both you and your institute.
Increase your time spent on new research
From rescuing your research tools from the back of whichever freezer they have been stored in, to trying to fit in the process of responding to requests for your tools (finding, preparing and shipping), into your already long list of high priority tasks, making your tools available to other scientists can be a daunting task. Translating your research tool ideas saves you time as you only need to complete this process once - when you first translate the tool. Your research tool partner, Ximbio, and your technology transfer office then manage the preparation and distribution of your research tools for you.
One of the greatest areas of waste in the life sciences industry is when time, resources and money is spent re-developing research tools that have already been created in another laboratory. This could be because the researcher has struggled to identify where the research tool was created or has difficulty in accessing the tool. It’s easy to lose a research tool, academics often leave universities or labs when a project ends, forget where they stored their tools or have no interest in translating them. If this was the case with just a few research tools, this might not have much of an impact, however with thousands of reagents created by thousands of researchers and hundreds of labs across the globe, the time, resources and money spent on re-developing tools starts to add up. Translating your research tool ideas makes the process of finding and accessing tools easier for other scientists. The Ximbio team, part of the technology transfer office at Cancer Research UK, works specifically on making sure research tools generated by scientists all over the world are easily accessible, to help accelerate life science research.The Ximbio portfolio provides a single, centralised collection of research tools, which ensures that knowledge and research materials, which would otherwise be lost, are maintained.
“Good science needs the best research tools to carry it out. It is paramount that these research tools are widely and easily available to scientists so that we can maximise the opportunity for breakthroughs. At Ximbio, we are proud to be supporting life science research by making these tools accessible to any scientist that needs them, through our global technology transfer partnerships.” - Robert Bondaryk, Ximbio’s Global Head
Increase research tool information to support experimental reproducibility
Having easy access to the research tools created or used during an experiment, is vital in ensuring other researchers can replicate your experiments and reproduce your results. However, simply having access to the research tool isn’t always helpful. Knowing how the research tool was created, stored and any protocols that could be useful to observe when using the research tool can also be helpful. Most scientific journals require authors to make their materials, reagents, data, code and associated protocols easily available to other scientists, as these resources are essential for repeating any given experiment. The amount of information and expertise provided about the research tool can make a difference in how successfully the research tool is used in another research project. Providing this information and answering any questions that may occur every time a researcher requests access to your research tool can be repetitive, frustrating and time consuming. Translating your research tool ideas, provides you with a partner who can help you meet these requirements and deal with any research tool queries. Publishing detailed information on your research tool on an online research tool portfolio, provides interested researchers with a dedicated source of information on your tool, helps establish your expertise of the research tool and research area and meets the requirements of most scientific journals.
Provide surety of research tools provenance and origin
Chances are your research tool wasn’t created from scratch; components would have been received from other laboratories, researchers or institutes. These components would have certain conditions associated with them on how they could be used, and how they could be distributed to other researchers. Identifying all the component parts of the research tool you have created and understanding all the individual terms of use can be complicated. It can also be very easy for you to lose control of your materials, if you personally send samples to other laboratories. Keeping control of your materials is important so that your efforts continue to be recognised. If you don’t have the correct agreement in place, it can be hard to make sure certain conditions are adhered to. Your research tools partner or technology transfer office ensures your concerns and requirements are registered within a material transfer agreement, providing you with necessary legal protection. These partners will also complete the necessary due diligence on all the components within your research tool, to ensure all the relevant conditions of using and distributing those components are met.
Encourage potential research collaborations
In addition to conferences, social media and online portals such as ResearchGate are playing an increasing important role in establishing collaborations between researchers and laboratories around the world. With many industry conferences and face-to-face events being cancelled this year because of COVID-19, online collaboration opportunities are of even greater importance. Translating your research tools, provides you with an additional channel to publicise your research and expertise. Both your research tools and research are published on the Ximbio portfolio, helping other scientists to find out more information on you and your research for collaboration opportunities.
Protect your research legacy
Ending a research project, taking a job at another university or retiring can often lead to questions on what to do with the research tools you have created. Storing your research tools in one place can lead to risks of your research legacy being lost through an accident e.g. fridge breaking, fire in the lab etc. Working with partners to translate your research tool ideas ensures your tools are being used and stored in multiple laboratories around the world, preventing the loss of your legacy if any one institute was to have an accident. Ximbio also has existing relationships with a number of research tools repositories around the world, such as ECACC, providing another storage opportunity for your research tools. Discover how we partnered with Dr.Pranab K. Das to protect his research legacy.
Without research, new treatments and therapies for cancers as well as other diseases wouldn’t be possible. The race for a COVID-19 vaccine and the global lockdown has caused a pause in much of this research recently. With lockdown gradually lifting, accelerating life science research is now more crucial than ever to fill this gap and to ensure patients continue to receive new treatment and therapy options.
Your research tools could make a difference.
Discover how you could partner with Ximbio to translate your research tools.