Reproducibility of Living Data - Validation of Published Research Using the Parkinson’s Progression Marker Initiative Living Database

• Activity Number: 426 - SPEED: Biopharmaceutical and General Health Studies: Statistical Methods and Applications, Part 2
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 : 3:05 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Biopharmaceutical Section
• Author(s): Elliot Burghardt* and Christopher Coffey and Chelsea Caspell-Garcia and Eric Foster
• Companies: University of Iowa and University of Iowa and University of Iowa and Ferring Pharmaceuticals
• Keywords: reproducible; open-access; biomarker; reproducibility

Abstract

Research achieves the goal of furthering knowledge when it is well documented and reproducible, forming a foundation for further discovery. Reports have revealed some irreproducibility across disciplines. Correspondingly, a growing emphasis has been placed on data sharing. The Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) is a longitudinal study of clinical, imaging, and biomic Parkinson disease markers to identify measures that predict progression of PD. PPMI’s daily updated collection of data is shared with the scientific community in an “open-access” and “living” database. This has the potential to expedite the identification of PD progression biomarkers. To date, over 140 publications have used PPMI data. However, there are potential sources of error that could raise questions regarding the validity of some published results. To assess the balance between rapid innovation and irreproducible findings of a “living” database, we randomly sampled published manuscripts and attempted to replicate them using our closest data freeze to that cited by authors. Here, we report on our ability to replicate results and make recommendations for researchers considering a “living” database.