Framing Research Questions

Use before running any confirmatory analysis or looking at outcome data, when testing a hypothesis, computing a p-value, or about to claim an effect - locks predictions and decision rules before results are seen

Plan, execute, and document validation, verification, and transfer of analytical procedures under the governing framework - ICH Q2(R2) and Q14, USP <1220>/<1225>/<1226>, ICH M10 bioanalytical, CLSI EP, or ISO/IEC 17025. Use for HPLC, LC-MS/MS, GC, CE, ICP-MS, dissolution, qNMR, qPCR, NIR, and ligand binding or cell-based assays whenever the question is whether a procedure is fit for its intended purpose. Triggers include "method validation", "analytical method validation", "AMV", "validation protocol", "acceptance criteria", "linearity", "reportable range", "accuracy and precision", "repeatability", "intermediate precision", "recovery", "LOD", "LOQ", "detection limit", "quantitation limit", "specificity", "robustness", "method transfer", "method comparison", "Deming", "Passing-Bablok", "Bland-Altman", "equivalence testing", "OOS investigation", "ICH Q2", "Q2(R2)", "Q14", "USP 1225", "ICH M10", "incurred sample reanalysis", "ISR", "CLSI EP", and any request to show that an assay works.

Design experiments and studies BEFORE data is collected — choosing a design, randomizing, blocking, and laying out treatment combinations so results are interpretable. Use whenever someone is planning a study, asks how to assign subjects/samples to groups, mentions randomization, blocking, stratification, controls, factorial or fractional-factorial designs, design of experiments (DOE), screening many factors, response-surface optimization, crossover or repeated-measures or split-plot designs, cluster/group randomization, Latin squares, plate layouts, batch/run-order effects, replication vs. pseudoreplication, or sequential/adaptive/group-sequential designs. Trigger even for informal phrasings like "how should I set up this experiment", "how do I avoid confounding", "what's the best way to test these 6 factors", or "assign these mice to conditions". For computing the sample size or power once the design is chosen, use statistical-power; for analyzing data already collected, use statistical-analysis.

Prepares and structurally reviews readiness evidence for ISO management-system and laboratory-competence standards - ISO 13485 medical device QMS, ISO 14971 device risk management, ISO/IEC 17025 testing and calibration laboratories, and ISO 15189 medical laboratories. Use when organizing declared scope, controlled documents, risk-management files, scope of accreditation, traceability, CAPA, external-provider controls, or bounded local evidence manifests, and when separating ISO certification from laboratory accreditation, FDA QMSR inspection, CLIA certification, MDSAP, and EU MDR/IVDR evidence boundaries. Not for legal applicability, compliance, certification, or accreditation decisions; contains no clause text.

Build, run, and debug Nextflow data pipelines and nf-core workflows end to end. Use whenever the user mentions Nextflow, nf-core, .nf files, nextflow.config, DSL2, processes/channels/operators, samplesheets, or wants to run a community pipeline (e.g. nf-core/rnaseq, nf-core/sarek), write or test a module/subworkflow with nf-test, configure executors/containers (Docker, Singularity/Apptainer, Conda, Wave), scale a workflow to HPC/SLURM or cloud (AWS Batch, Google Batch, Azure, Kubernetes), or debug a failed/-resume run. Make sure to use this skill for any reproducible scientific/bioinformatics workflow work even if the user does not say the word "Nextflow", and for authoring nf-core-compliant pipelines, modules, configs, and linting.

Run pathway and gene-set enrichment analysis on gene lists or ranked gene data, then interpret the results. Use whenever the user has a set of genes (differentially expressed genes from PyDESeq2/Scanpy, CRISPR-screen hits, cluster marker genes, proteomics hits) and wants to know which biological pathways, GO terms, or gene sets are over-represented or enriched. Covers over-representation analysis (ORA / Enrichr / Fisher / hypergeometric), ranked Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA / preranked), single-sample scoring (ssGSEA/GSVA), and functional profiling via gseapy, g:Profiler, Enrichr libraries, MSigDB, GO, KEGG, Reactome, and WikiPathways — plus gene-ID mapping, choosing the right background universe, multiple-testing correction, redundancy reduction, dotplots/enrichment maps, and publication-ready tables. Use this for "pathway analysis", "enrichment analysis", "GO enrichment", "KEGG/Reactome pathways", "GSEA", "over-representation", "functional annotation", or "what pathways are my genes in".