The NIH requires regular authentication of reagents, like cell lines?
In 2015 the NIH said: The quality of the resources used to conduct research is critical to the ability to reproduce the results. NIH expects that key biological and/or chemical resources will be regularly authenticated to ensure their identity and validity for use in the proposed studies. Key biological and/or chemical resources may or may not be generated with NIH funds and: 1) may differ from laboratory to laboratory or over time; 2) may have qualities and/or qualifications that could influence the research data; and 3) are integral to the proposed research. These include, but are not limited to, cell lines, specialty chemicals, antibodies and other biologics.1
The ASN-0002 standard for cell line authentication is short tandem repeat (STR) profiling. The University of Arizona Genetics Core has a cell line authentication service for human cell lines that uses the STR technique.
Many of us have heard stories of colleagues who have lost work (or worse yet, were forced to retract published work) due to mis-identified cell lines. Have yours tested regularly!
1 - https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-15-103.html