@article{KleikersHooijmansGoebetal.2015,
  author    = {Kleikers, Pamela W. M. and Hooijmans, Carlijn and G{\"o}b, Eva and Langhauser, Friederike and Rewell, Sarah S. J. and Radermacher, Kim and Ritskes-Hoitinga, Merel and Howells, David W. and Kleinschnitz, Christoph and Schmidt, Harald H. H. W.},
  title     = {A combined pre-clinical meta-analysis and randomized confirmatory trial approach to improve data validity for therapeutic target validation},
  series = {Scientific Reports},
  volume    = {5},
  journal   = {Scientific Reports},
  number    = {13428},
  doi       = {10.1038/srep13428},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-151401},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Biomedical research suffers from a dramatically poor translational success. For example, in ischemic stroke, a condition with a high medical need, over a thousand experimental drug targets were unsuccessful. Here, we adopt methods from clinical research for a late-stage pre-clinical meta-analysis (MA) and randomized confirmatory trial (pRCT) approach. A profound body of literature suggests NOX\(_{2}\) to be a major therapeutic target in stroke. Systematic review and MA of all available NOX\(_{2}\)\(^{-/y}\) studies revealed a positive publication bias and lack of statistical power to detect a relevant reduction in infarct size. A fully powered multi-center pRCT rejects NOX\(_{2}\) as a target to improve neurofunctional outcomes or achieve a translationally relevant infarct size reduction. Thus stringent statistical thresholds, reporting negative data and a MA-pRCT approach can ensure biomedical data validity and overcome risks of bias.},
  language  = {en}
}