Free tool
Traffic Light
Put in a research idea. The Traffic Light searches PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov, weighs what it finds and gives a green, amber or red light. Red means not this way, never not at all.
Free: 3 checks a day.
See why, and what would turn it green
Members get the full diagnostic map: existing reviews, work under way, room for your angle and whether your design fits, each with the papers and trials behind it, and two to four concrete ways to change the question. 5 checks a week, separate from the assistant.
Signing in from here keeps your idea in this browser, on this device only, for 24 hours, so you can continue with it on the member page (Tools, then Traffic Light).
An example of the full map
What this checks, and what it does not
The check turns your idea into search terms, counts what PubMed holds on it, looks for systematic reviews, randomised trials and registered trials, and reads the titles and abstracts it finds. Fixed, published rules then set the light.
It searches PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov only. It does not search Embase, Scopus, conference abstracts, preprints, PROSPERO or other trial registries, and it reads abstracts, not full papers. It is a screening check, not a systematic search.
Built by Dr. Dimitrios Magouliotis, Research Associate Professor, for the doctors who read Dimitri's Letters.