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      A decade plus of translation: what do we understand?

      editorial
      1 , 2 , , 3 ,
      Clinical and Translational Medicine
      Springer

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          Abstract

          It has been more than a decade that the term "Translational" (medicine, Research, Science) has trickled through the minds of academics, clinicians, business persons, regulators, policy makers, patients and their families, patient advocates, politicians and the public. Although the term means different things for different stake holders, it reflect and eagerness to see a fruitful outcome of the resources invested in biotechnology to benefit primarily the patients but also provide financial return for those who invested. Skeptics remain who feel the concept if abused by those attempting to deviate funds for basic or clinical research to a new domain performing similar tasks under a different egida. In reality, translational sciences are not different in scope any from previous efforts to focus the goals of research toward the relevant object of helping the disabled. The difference is that, in recent decades, awareness has risen about the difficulties of reaching this goal. In particular, it has become clear that the difficulties are not limited to scientific challenges, but to a myriad of hurdles that make testing and licensing of novel concepts unnecessarily burdensome. Moreover, it was recognized that the infrastructure to support clinical research is frequently outdated and inappropriate. The biggest hurdle, however, remains the cost and the length of clinical testing that could prolong of decades the application of even the most successful treatments. As for any expanding field, a plethora of journals has appeared with "Translational" in their title. This is a positive sign of the growth in interest for the field and the need to respond to a need for editorial boards competent in the challenges of judging clinical testing. In this editorial, we will discuss the meaning of translational medicine, its goals and needs; we will summarize the remaining challenges and will provide a personal overview of the strategies that remain to be implemented.

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          Translational Medicine: A two-way road

          The purpose of translational research is to test, in humans, novel therapeutic strategies developed through experimentation. Translational research should be regarded as a two-way road: Bench to Bedside and Bedside to Bench. However, Bedside to Bench efforts have regrettably been limited because the scientific aspects are poorly understood by full time clinicians and the difficulty of dealing with humans poorly appreciated by basic scientists. Translational research would be most useful to the scientific community at large if journals would foster specific interest for the publication of ex vivo human observation. The review process for such work should be assigned to clinical scientists competent not only in the intricacies of molecular or cell biology but also intimate with the reality of Internal Review Boards, ethics committees, Governmental Regulatory Agencies and most importantly the humane aspects of dealing with sick individuals and their families. This approach may focus both basic and clinical scientists and those struggling to fill the gap between them on the effective treatment of diseases affecting women, men and children making translational research more than an interesting concept.
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            Research funding. Measuring the results of science investments.

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              Lost in Translation: Obstacles to Translational Medicine

              When we launched the Journal of Translational Medicine a few months ago, we were interested primarily in exploring scientific consideration of this discipline. However, as editors of JTM, we have been contacted almost daily to discuss the problems faced by scientists and clinicians around the world who are challenging the traditional boundaries of science and medicine. Through these conversations, we have learned that translational medicine is in fact "lost in translation," inspiring much angst, many promises and some Federal appropriations. However, little has been done to substantively promote this important field. Authoritative reviews on the subject are available to the interested reader [1-7]. In this article, we will address JTM's "constituency" to report what we've learned about the obstacles to translational medicine from the myriad of phone conversations and e-mail interactions.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Clin Transl Med
                Clin Transl Med
                Clinical and Translational Medicine
                Springer
                2001-1326
                2012
                30 March 2012
                : 1
                : 3
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Fudan University Zhongshan Hospital, Shanghai 200032, China
                [2 ]Biomedical Research Center, Fudan University Zhongshan Hospital, Shanghai 200032, China
                [3 ]Infectious Disease and Immunogenetics Section (IDIS), Department of Transfusion Medicine, Clinical Center, and trans-NIH Center for Human Immunology (CHI), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
                Article
                2001-1326-1-3
                10.1186/2001-1326-1-3
                3552564
                23369290
                31572891-0a21-40e0-ad04-d2f906d34a39
                Copyright ©2012 Wang and Marincola; licensee Springer.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 13 March 2012
                : 30 March 2012
                Categories
                Editorial

                Medicine
                Medicine

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