How video publication of laboratory experiments will solve the reproducibility problem: The Journal of Visualized Experiments

One day, my supervising professor came to me in the lab, pointing to an article in a prestigious research journal, and indicating that we must learn the methodology described in the paper in order to implement it in our laboratory. Back then, in 2005, I was a graduate student in a biology lab at Princeton University, New Jersey. I did my best, but replication of the method and results did not work out. The professor put someone else on the task. Replication still did not work out. The professor came to see me again, and suggested that I visit the lab initially conducting the research. So I got on a plane bound for Edinburgh, Scotland. I spent two weeks in the lab, immersed myself in the procedures, returned to Princeton, and successfully replicated the experiment. Reproducibility in science is a big issue. In the 21st century, and given all the Internet technologies available, to me it seemed somewhat cumbersome and out-dated that we were seeking experimental replication based on a description in a paper, only to find that we had to travel far away, to the other lab. In what follows, I would like to show how the video recording of experiments effectively and reliably addresses the problem of reproducibility in research. From this insight emerged the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), now serving ten broad research fields across the sciences, and subscribed to by more than 800 institutions.