Mistaken Identities Plague Lab Work with Human Cells

December 9, 2014

(NPR) – There’s a major flaw in many medical research studies that seems so basic that you’d think scientists would be smart enough to avoid it. It turns out that cells studied in the laboratory often get mixed up. A researcher who thinks she is studying breast cancer cells might in fact be using melanoma cells. It’s a surprisingly common problem — even in some of the top scientific labs.