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What you get

A clear split of the evidence into preclinical and human tiers, with counts for each, the strongest study in each, and an explicit verdict on whether the claim has ever been tested in people.

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Who it’s for

Discovery and translational teams deciding whether a finding is ready to build on, investors doing scientific diligence, and anyone evaluating a claim that sounds better-established than it is.

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Why the ratio is the finding

A large preclinical literature reads as strong evidence. Forty mouse studies and zero human trials is a very different situation from four of each — but a naive literature summary presents both as “well studied”. Making the tier split explicit is the entire point of this workflow.

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How it works

1

Run the same question at two tiers

One search restricted to preclinical designs, one restricted to human studies. Identical concept, deliberately different populations.
2

Use study types as the tier boundary

study_types=animal and non-rct in vitro isolate preclinical work. human=true with rct, cohort study, and non-rct observational study isolates the clinical tier.
3

Report both counts, always

Even when one is zero. Especially when one is zero.
4

Check whether the human work tested the same thing

Human studies often measure a surrogate rather than the outcome the preclinical work implied. A human trial of a biomarker is not a human trial of the disease outcome — say which you found.
5

Look for failed translation explicitly

Search for trials that ran and did not replicate the preclinical finding. This is the most informative and most frequently skipped search.

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The API calls

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Reporting it

The bottom row is the output. Everything above it is context.

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What to check before you trust it

  • Zero human studies may mean zero, or may mean your query missed them. Confirm with a different phrasing before reporting an absence — human trials often use a compound name where preclinical work uses a mechanism.
  • Watch the surrogate outcome. “Tested in humans” for a biomarker change is not “tested in humans” for the clinical outcome.
  • Species matters. Effects in short-lived model organisms translate especially poorly for anything involving lifespan or ageing.
  • Absence of failed trials is not evidence of success. Negative results are under-published, so a clean record may reflect publication bias.

Build a drug target validation dossier

The full tiered dossier this check is one section of.

Grade a set of papers with your own evidence rubric

Score what you find on a consistent scale.

Best practices

Filter ladder and the rest of the primitives.

All use cases

Browse the gallery by persona.