Rigor, Reproducibility and Transparency Seminar Series
The Rigor, Reproducibility, and Transparency (RRT) Seminar Series is a series in collaboration with the University of Washington presented by faculty from each of the several ongoing training grants at Fred Hutch and UW. The series is in response to recently mandated RRT training by the NIH for trainees on training grants, F awards, and K awards. Lectures focus on a detailed discussion of common or emerging methodologies with the aim of describing strengths, limitations, and pitfalls so those employing or interpreting the data gain a realistic sense of what can and cannot be learned. Trainees are encouraged to attend lectures outside of their field of expertise as it is likely that they will encounter data from these methods, and understanding how they work and what their limitations are is crucial, so the talks are designed to be accessible to a broad biomedical audience.
Who is required to attend the series?
All trainees on training grants should check with their training grant director for required attendance, and F & K awardees are strongly encouraged to participate.
How to participate
The RRT seminar series will be held every 2 months. There are 2 ways to receive credit for participation:
1. Attend the seminar live
2. Watch the video recording of the seminar within 30 days
After attending live or viewing the recording, attendees will fill out a survey and state 3 things learned.
RRT Seminar Series
November 5, 2024, 2 PM - The Many Melodies of Protein NMR
Speaker: Peter Brzovic, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington
September 10, 2024, 2 PM - How biostatistics can enhance rigor, reproducibility, and transparency in your research
Speaker: Leila Zelnick, PhD, Research Associate Professor of Medicine (Nephrology), Director of Biostatistics, Kidney Research Institute, University of Washington
June 4, 2024, 2 PM - Evaluating and distinguishing claims from evidence in your research
Speaker: Matt Akamatsu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington
April 2, 2024, 2 PM - Rigorously Assessing Rigor in X-ray Crystallography
Speaker: Roland Strong, PhD, Professor, Basic Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
February 20, 2024, 2 PM - How I ensure rigor, reproducibility, and transparency in my research
Speaker: Oscar Vivas, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Washington
October 17, 2023, 2 PM - Effective use of mouse models for biological research
Speaker: Andrew Oberst, PhD, Professor, Department of Immunology, University of Washington
September 19, 2023, 2 PM - Reliable and Reproducible Computational Data Analysis and Simulations for Cell Adhesion Biomechanics
Speaker: Wendy Thomas, PhD, Professor, Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington
May 9, 2023, 2 PM - Single molecule biophysics: some pitfalls and how to avoid them
Speaker: Chip Asbury, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of Washington
March 7, 2023, 2 PM - From negative results to new insights in cell signaling and gene regulation
Speaker: Jesse Zalatan, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Washington
February 21, 2023, 2 PM - Practical reproducibility in bioinformatics – opportunities, pitfalls, and useful strategies
Speaker: Sam Minot, PhD, Associate Director, Hutch Data Core, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
December 6, 2022, 2 PM - High dimensional analysis of human T cells in health and disease
Speaker: Evan Newell, PhD, Associate Professor, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
October 25, 2022, 2 PM - Statistical methods to enhance reproducible microbiome discovery
Jing Ma, PhD, Assistant Professor, Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
May 3, 2022, 2 PM - The reconstitution of mitochondrial fusion
Suzanne Hoppins, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington
March 8, 2022, 2 PM - Effective use of mouse models for biological research
Speaker: Andrew Oberst, PhD, Professor, Department of Immunology, University of Washington
January 18, 2022, 2 PM - Rigor and reproducibility in targeting gene function using viral-mediated CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis
Larry Zweifel, PhD, Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Washington
October 12, 2021, 2 PM - On-Target Discovery: Rigor and reproducibility in genetic screen
Speaker: Alice Berger, PhD, Associate Professor, Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
September 28, 2021, 2 PM - Protein Conformational Changes: Using Bayesian Inference to Quantify Uncertainty and Make Robust Conclusions
Speaker: Stefan Stoll, PhD, Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Washington
May 4, 2021, 2 PM - Rigor and Reproducibility in Optical Microscopy
Speaker: Joshua Vaughan, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Washington
March 23, 2021, 2 PM - Overcoming irreproducibility in hydrogen/deuterium exchange studies: Establishing rigor and reproducibility in a technique approaching its adolescence
Speaker: Miklos Guttman, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Washington
January 12, 2021, 2 PM - Getting the numbers right - common statistical misses in the news and in the lab
Speaker: Ruth Etzioni, PhD, Professor, Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
November 17, 2020, 2 PM - Rigor and Reproducibility in Metabolomics
Lucas Sullivan, PhD, Assistant Professor, Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
September 15, 2020, 10 AM - Rigor and Reproducibility in Flow Cytometry
Chetan Seshadri, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, University of Washington
July 16, 2020, 2 PM - Studying the impacts of mutations to SARS-CoV-2
Jesse Bloom, PhD, Professor, Basic Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
May 14, 2020, 1 PM - Querying chromatin accessibility in complex tissues with ATAC-Seq
Andrea Wills, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington
FAQs
Rigor, Reproducible and Transparency (RRT) Training is a required NIH training topic for T32 trainees starting on May 25, 2020.
Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training has been a required NIH training topic for many years. The UW and Fred Hutch organize a summer Biomedical Research Integrity Series and Discussion Groups to fulfill this training requirement.
Many graduate students receive fundamental training in rigor, reproducibility and transparency through required graduate departmental coursework or by other means. Rigor and reproducibility training is also a fundamental aspect of mentoring and teaching research best practices to early-stage scientists. With that in mind, our intent is to provide more advanced training for senior graduate students and postdoctoral fellows that introduces complex topics of rigor and reproducibility methodology used in the practice of research. This training is delivered via a seminar series with T32 faculty speakers who discuss the techniques and approaches they use to ensure rigor and reproducibility in their research.
For both Fred Hutch and UW trainees: to receive credit for attending you will need to fill out your respective institutional surveys. The surveys will ask you to state three things that you learned from this seminar as proof of your attendance. You will then receive credit on Hutch Learning or in the UW RRT attendee database.
- Fred Hutch: For Fred Hutch trainees to receive credit, you can access the recordings and the survey on CenterNet.
- UW: For UW trainees to receive credit, you can access the recordings and survey on the UW SOM Research Events and Trainings page.
The number of seminars that you are required to attend in this series is determined by your T32 Program Director. Please consult with them about the number of seminars you should attend.
Please contact Karen Peterson if you would like to have your T32 trainees participate in this series. NIH T32 PIs and F/K awardees in the Seattle region are welcome to join the FHCC/UW/SCRI RRT seminar series. We only ask for five things to join and there is no formal agreement:
- Suggest T32 participating faculty to present in the series. We have 5 seminars per year and currently represent 20+ T32s across the Fred Hutch, UW and SCRI. See our RRT Seminar Speaker Guidance document for the type of seminar we are seeking. Please suggest speakers who you think could create an interesting and informative talk.
- We need at least one T32 PI name and email to subscribe to our RRT Seminar listserv. Please let Amanda Bradley know who that person is
- Note that we don’t have the capacity to keep track of all the trainees who go on/off T32s, so we ask that the T32 PI or associated admin send out the seminar info to their current trainees. You will receive an email from the listserv about the seminar and it’s your responsibility to forward the email to your current trainees.
- It’s up to the T32 PI to set the number of seminars their trainees must attend per year and to ask their trainees to provide evidence that they are attending (i.e., Hutch Learning transcript or UW Graduate School database).
- We ask that the T32 PIs keep in mind that this seminar series only partially meets the RRT requirement and that the T32 participating faculty mentors also have a duty to teach their trainees best practices in RRT methods in addition to any courses/workshops/etc that are required by a graduate program.
Fred Hutch Trainees: Go to Access Hutch Learning (fredhutch.org)
Trainees and T32 PIs who have a UW School of Medicine (SOM) portal account or UW Net ID:
- With a UW SOM Portal Account: Research and Graduate Education > Reports > RRT Seminar Attendance Report
- With a UW NetID: This and other training grant-related reports are accessible through the School of Medicine’s Intranet site, Training Grants and Resources section of the Research and Graduate Education content area.
Other institutional trainees: if you have a UW Net ID or UW SOM portal account, your attendance will likely be recorded by the UW Graduate School. For others, please contact your T32 Program Director (the PI on the T32 grant) to ask how attendance is tracked for your program or institution.
Yes, we have both a general Fred Hutch plan for instruction and examples that PIs David Raible (UW) and Bob Eisenman (Fred Hutch) submitted for their T32 renewals. Please contact Karen Peterson to access these documents.
Seminars are advertised via the RRT-training listserv. Only T32 PIs and NIH F/K awardees can subscribe to this listserv. We lack the capacity to keep track of all T32 trainees who go on/off T32 funding.
Please review the RRT Seminar Speaker Guidance document so you can see what kind of seminar we ask the speakers to deliver since it’s quite different from a typical research seminar.
Advisory committee members as of March 2023:
- William Atkins, Medicinal Chemistry, UW
- Thomas Hawn, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, UW
- Marshall Horwitz, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, UW
- Justin Kollman, Biochemistry, UW
- Conrad Liles, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, UW
- Andrew Oberst, Immunology, UW
- Barry Stoddard, Basic Sciences, Fred Hutch
- Ning Zheng, Pharmacology, UW
- Larry Zweifel, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UW
Amanda Bradley, PhD
Program Manager, Responsible Conduct of Research Programs, Office of Scientific Career Development
Amber Ismael, PhD
Senior Program Manager, Office of Scientific Career Development
Karen Peterson, PhD
Director, Office of Scientific Career Development