What is it?

“Translational research transforms scientific discoveries arising from laboratory, clinical, or population studies into clinical applications…” – definition from Translational Research Working Group (TRWG) .

Discoveries generally kick off as basic research on the “bench”, but it is important to translate these marvelous progresses to the patient’s “bedside”, on a clinical level. Thus, as rightfully highlighted by Lee Nadler, a senior vice president for Experimental Medicine at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and in-charge of promoting the translation of basic research discoveries into clinical applications:

“A translational researcher is someone who takes something from basic research to a patient and measures an endpoint in a patient.”

Overall, translation research should be a multi-disciplinary collaboration, which requires a team approach. Integration between the laboratory research and industry or clinical practice is necessary and crucial. The process from “bench” to “bedside” will be sped up only when the parties involved, i.e. the researchers, clinicians, technicians or any other key personnel work, communicate and interact effectively with each other.

Why this?

Translation research will provide the potential to drive the advancement of molecular-based medicine, and thus accelerate health care outcome, ultimately providing actual point-of-care patient applications. Early detection of diseases, such as cancer, increased efficiency in drug development, improvement in drug efficacy and possibilities of personalized medicine with biomarkers, will be made possible with translational research.

Why now?

In the past years, large amounts of funding were poured into life science basic search, but the return on investment has yet live up to expectations. As highlighted above, transformation of the enormous amount of “research” science is the key lacking factor for this phenomenon. In view of the looming economy around the globe, it is ever more important to catalyze development in translation research, so that the community can further capitalize on the brilliant discoveries which are being made in the laboratories each day.

Image: Flickr/drug