TY - JOUR A1 - Kleikers, Pamela W. M. A1 - Hooijmans, Carlijn A1 - Göb, Eva A1 - Langhauser, Friederike A1 - Rewell, Sarah S. J. A1 - Radermacher, Kim A1 - Ritskes-Hoitinga, Merel A1 - Howells, David W. A1 - Kleinschnitz, Christoph A1 - Schmidt, Harald H. H. W. T1 - A combined pre-clinical meta-analysis and randomized confirmatory trial approach to improve data validity for therapeutic target validation JF - Scientific Reports N2 - 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. KW - focal cerebral ischemia KW - darbepoetin alpha KW - mice KW - translational stroke research KW - colony-stimulating factor KW - NADPH oxidase inhibitors KW - chronic kidney disease KW - diabetes mellitus KW - oxidative stress KW - search filter Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-151401 VL - 5 IS - 13428 ER -