The Scientific Score:
A Comprehensive & Objective Rating for Life Science Research Products

Choose the best products for your experiment, based on the aggregation of several metrics provided by fellow research scientists, suppliers, and the ZAGENO marketplace.

What is the Scientific Score?

ZAGENO’s Scientific Score is a comprehensive product rating system, specifically developed for evaluating research products. It incorporates several aspects of product data, from multiple sources, to equip scientists with a sophisticated and unbiased product rating for making accurate purchasing decisions.

Intuitive 0-10 Ranking
Category-Specific
Calculated Relative of Other Products
Extensive User Behavior Analytics from the ZAGENO Marketplace
Metric Data Provided by Scientists, Suppliers and ZAGENO

How Does the Score Evaluate Research Products?

An application-specific evaluation

We apply sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to accurately match, group, and categorize millions of products. The Scientific Score accounts for these categorizations, as each product’s score is calculated relative to those in the same category. The result is a rating system that scientists can trust — one that is specific to both product application and product type.

A fusion of useful product data

Standard product ratings are useful to assess products quickly, but are often biased and unreliable, due to their reliance on unknown reviews or a single metric (e.g. publications). They also provide little detail on experimental context or application.

The Scientific Score utilizes a scientific methodology to objectively and comprehensively evaluate research products. It combines all necessary and relevant product information into a single 0–10 rating to support our customers in deciding which product to buy and use for their application — saving hours of product research.

A neutral and straightforward guide

To ensure no single factor dominates, we add cut-off points and give more weight to recent contributions. The sheer number of factors we take into account virtually eliminates any opportunity for manipulation. As a result, our score is an objective measure of the quality and quantity of available product information, which supports our customers’ purchasing decisions.

Where Can I Find a Product’s Scientific Score?

A quick glance to the top right corner of any product will reveal its Scientific Score.
Scientific score example

How Can I Contribute?

Contributors at a Glance
Scientist Contributions
Supplier Contributions
ZAGENO Marketplace Contributions
Contributors at a glance

Contributors at a Glance

Scientists, suppliers, and ZAGENO all contribute to the Scientific Score, providing:

  • Product specifications & resources,
  • Product citations in the form of published methods or validations,
  • Insights from user behavior analytics.

Each contribution is then weighted based on its importance to the scientist to give a truly meaningful product rating.

Scientist contributions

Scientist Contributions

  • Publications (which cite usage of the product)
    Send your publications to [email protected]. Include your name, publication title, publication link (DOI or journal link), and the products used (product names or catalog numbers).
  • Validations (which verify the product’s efficacy)
    Send your antibody validation data to ZAVI (ZAGENO’s Antibody Validation Initiative) via [email protected]. Validations will then be added as a resource under each product.
  • How You Benefit
    Improve the visibility of your research, increase your exposure and help fellow scientists to evaluate product efficacy.
Supplier contributions

Supplier Contributions

  • Specifications & Resources (size, yield, volume, etc.)
    Request a portfolio upload template from our Supplier Partnership team at [email protected]. Once returned, your specifications and resources will be published on the ZAGENO marketplace.
  • Validations (which verify the product’s efficacy)
    Send your antibody validation data to ZAVI (ZAGENO’s Antibody Validation Initiative) via [email protected]. Validations will then be added as a resource under each product.
  • How You Benefit
    Make your portfolio stand out and easy to find for our scientist user base. Help scientists to evaluate the efficacy of your products.
ZAGENO contributions

Zageno Marketplace Contributions

  • Commercial success of the product (product purchases and re-purchases),
  • Performance of the product’s brand (product purchases across the brand),
  • User behavior (customers’ interaction with the product).

Scientific Score FAQ

hello world!
What is the underlying algorithm for the Scientific Score?
The underlying concept for the Scientific Score is based on a comparison of similar products, and then a ranking of each of those products relative to each other along various dimensions, called sub-scores. The total score is derived by weighting the different sub-scores, resulting in a percentile-based ranking ranging from 0.1 to 10.0. The algorithm itself depends on a harmonized database assembled by ZAGENO, which is integrated with various data sources, consistently checked for duplicates, and regularly normalized to accommodate for the needs of the biotech industry.
What impacts the Scientific Score?

The factors contributing to the final score of a product include, among others:

  • Product specifications provided by the manufacturer and supplier (as well as product-specific resources, i.e. handbooks and SDS documents)
  • Scientists’ validation results
  • Utilization in published methods (such as those found in a product’s resources section)
  • The popularity of the product amongst scientists
  • The performance of the product’s brand (based on performance across the whole brand range)
  • The product's commercial success on ZAGENO

We believe that only a combination of various types of data can provide an accurate rating that accounts for the complexity of scientific products.

How often is the Scientific Score updated?
The Scientific Score is updated once a month, using data collected from the previous six months. This ensures that the Scientific Score is kept relevant and up-to-date, on par with the fast pace of Life Science research.
Can suppliers and manufacturers influence the scoring of their products?
Manufacturers and suppliers do not have a way to manipulate or “buy” points counting towards the score. The only way for them to improve their product’s score is to provide further information considered valuable to our scientific users (e.g., detailed specifications, citations, etc.)
How are publications included in the Score?
Publications found in the “Resources” section of a product page are the ones that currently influence the Scientific Score. These are often provided by the manufacturer or supplier as examples of where the product has been used in relevant studies. In addition, scientists can contribute to the “Resources” section, and thus influence the score, by providing links to their publications which cite products on ZAGENO, or by providing relevant antibody validations. In the future, we aim to include more publications listed on major indexing sites, such as PubMed and Google Scholar.
Should I not consider a product with a low Score?
The Scientific Score is a relative guide, comparing products to their peers. The score reflects the quality and quantity of all relevant information that is available on ZAGENO and from reputable public sources. We are continuously collecting more information, provided by users, suppliers, the scientific community, and our marketplace analytics.
Why do some products have no Score?
Products recently added to the ZAGENO catalog are not included in the last monthly calculation update, and so will have no score. This information usually gets updated in the following month, when the score calculations are refreshed.
Why do many products have the same score in a category - is this a “bug”?
Products with the same score likely have similar information available contributing to the algorithm — this is particularly true for products from the same brand. As more product information is added over time, the Scientific Scores of these products will begin to differ as well.

If you have additional questions, you can reach us at [email protected]

Make your contribution!

Increase the visibility of your research or portfolio. Submit your citations, validations, specifications and resources.

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