RRIDs are required in any publication using human islets in the journals Diabetologia or Diabetes

dkNET and RRID team have been continuously working on promoting Rigor and Reproducible research, and this week, there is another great news to share with the entire research community! In July, 2018, the Resource Identification, RRID, Initiative began working with the BioSamples databases in the EU and US in order to identify the pancreatic islets used by researchers who are part of the IIDP (Integrated Islet Distribution Program) project (check out dkNET's previous news here). Now “unique identifiers” and critical characteristics are going to be required in any publication using human islets in the journals Diabetologia or Diabetes!

Here is the information from Diabetologia author instruction:

"Studies involving human islets

From 14 December 2018, Diabetologia requires authors of papers reporting data obtained from studies on human islets to report critical characteristics of the human islets used for research (see checklist). Such information will facilitate comparisons among studies using isolated human islets and, to the extent possible, standardisation of the preparations and methods used by individual laboratories. These objectives are aligned with the current emphasis placed on scientific rigour and reproducibility in research by a number of major funding organisations [1,2]"

Diabetologia also published an article and suggests using a unique identifier for each islet preparation. Here is the information from the article:

We propose that each islet preparation be assigned a unique identifier,something equivalent to a Globally Unique Identifier(GUID) or Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) that is usedto identify information in computer systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier). The IIDPhas recently adopted an approach to assign each human isletpreparation a Research Resource Identifier (RRID) based onthe US National Institutes of Health (NIH) ResourceIdentification Portal created as part of their initiative to authenticatekey biological resources (https://scicrunch.org/resources). The creation, use, and reporting of an RRID foreach human islet preparation would allow investigators toidentify which islet preparations were used in particularpublications and if other investigators used the same isletpreparation. A unique research identifier for each humanislet preparation would also create an organisationalframework, allowing establishment of centralised databasesin which multidisciplinary human islet data from multiplesources and investigators could be stored, referenced,accessed and harmonised."

For more information, you could also check out these two articles: (1) Use of human islets to understand islet biology and diabetes: progress, challenges and suggestions(2) A call for improved reporting of human islet characteristics in research articles.

Here is the information from Diabetes author instruction:

Diabetes requires authors of papers reporting data obtained from studies on human islets to report critical characteristics of the human islets used for research. Read the complete Human Islet Reporting Policy and Download the Human Islet Checklist (.doc)  (.doc).Diabetes requires authors of original research studies to describe in their papers how readers can access the data and critical resources supporting their reported findings, methods, and conclusions. Read the complete Data and Resource Sharing and Availability Policy ."

Source information: 

(1) http://diabetologia-journal.org/for-authors/instructions-to-authors/

(2) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00125-018-4772-2

(3) http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/instructions-for-authors