Researchers are struggling to breed a paper that confirmed quantum dots may detect copper ions inside residing cells. Now they’re calling all nanoscientists for assist.
The researchers, primarily based within the Netherlands and France, try to duplicate their landmark 2012 research that claimed fluorescent quantum dots can detect copper ions inside residing cells, as a part of one of many first main efforts within the bodily sciences to sort out the reproducibility disaster.
They’re providing each funding and sources in alternate for a number of months of collaborative work to scrupulously reassess the unique findings.
We try to make use of replication as a software to resolve an issue or, you recognize, to get nearer to the reality.
Raphaël Lévy, Physicist, Sorbonne Paris North College
Levy additionally co-leads NanoBubbles, a European initiative that research self-correction in science.
The undertaking, named after the bubbles of misinformation that may kind when poor science goes untreated, issued a name for help on February 11th, 2026. The decision comes as different research organizations in psychology and the social sciences put together to supply updates on their very own large-scale replication initiatives, motivated by the big variety of scientific outcomes that can’t be replicated when different folks conduct the identical experiments.
Typically these trials be certain that the info given in printed papers help the outcomes and conclusions. In different circumstances, they restart the experiments from scratch. Final yr, for instance, a large-scale reproducibility undertaking in Brazil tried however did not confirm dozens of biomedical findings.
Lévy, one among 4 researchers main the NanoBubbles undertaking, which is funded by a €8-million (US$9.5-million) grant from the European Analysis Council, needs laboratories to re-examine a 2012 research that prompt small, fluorescent carbon nanoparticles could detect copper ions inside residing cells.
This could be medically vital as a result of extreme copper ranges are related to ailments, together with most cancers and neurodegenerative problems. The research, led by Yang Tian, a chemist at Tongji College in Shanghai, China, is an element of a bigger analysis effort to develop modified nanoparticles for imaging, diagnostics, and drug supply.
After pre-registering their intentions, the NanoBubbles staff tried and failed to duplicate the findings within the analysis.
I used to be actually shocked, as a result of within the printed protocol, the fluorescence of the particles decreased when the focus of the goal elevated, however in our experiments, it simply stayed the identical.
Mustafa El Gharib, Nanoscientist, Sorbonne Paris North College
Nature contacted Tian however obtained no response.
Area Variations
There are a number of the reason why work on this subject may fail to duplicate, in keeping with Wolfgang Parak, a physicist on the College of Hamburg in Germany who’s on the NanoBubbles advisory board however was not concerned in Gharib’s investigations.
For instance, Parak said that one among his synthesis processes proved tough to duplicate after relocating his lab from the US to Europe.
Floor chemistry is extraordinarily delicate to small impurities.
Wolfgang Parak, Physicist, College of Hamburg
Reagents in numerous international locations could fluctuate in contamination ranges. One other difficulty is that experimental strategies could not all the time present sufficient step descriptions. So, any research that identifies important factors in procedures and exhibits how one can improve them is helpful.
Parak believes the NanoBubbles replication was performed successfully.
They actually measured every little thing very fastidiously and used state-of-the-art methods.
Wolfgang Parak, Physicist, College of Hamburg
Levy’s staff revealed the findings in a preprint submitted final yr, which is ready to be printed in Royal Society Open Science.
