Translational research
Encyclopedia
Translational research is a way of thinking about and conducting scientific research to make the results of research applicable to the population under study and is practised in the natural and biological, behavioural, and social sciences. In the field of medicine, for example, it is used to translate the findings in basic research more quickly and efficiently into medical practice and, thus, meaningful health outcomes, whether those are physical, mental, or social outcomes. In medicine in particular, governmental funders of research and pharmaceutical companies have spent vast amounts internationally on basic research and have seen that the return on investment
Return on investment
Return on investment is one way of considering profits in relation to capital invested. Return on assets , return on net assets , return on capital and return on invested capital are similar measures with variations on how “investment” is defined.Marketing not only influences net profits but also...

 is significantly less than anticipated. Translational research has come to be seen as the key, missing component. Translational research is another term for translative research and translational science
Translational science
Translational science is a cross disciplinary scientific research that is motivated by the need for practical applications that help people. The term is used mostly in the health sciences and refers to things like the discovery of new drugs that directly help improve human health...

, although it fails to disambiguate itself from forms of research that are not scientific (e.g., market research), which are currently considered outside its scope.

With its focus on removing barriers to multi-disciplinary collaboration, translational research has the potential to drive the advancement of applied science. An attempt to bridge these barriers has been undertaken particularly in the medical domain where the term translational medicine
Translational medicine
Translational medicine is a medical practice based on interventional epidemiology. It is regarded by its proponents as a natural progression from Evidence-Based Medicine. It integrates research from the basic sciences, social sciences and political sciences with the aim of optimising patient care...

 has been applied to a research approach that seeks to move “from bench to bedside” or from laboratory experiments through clinical trials to actual point-of-care patient applications. However, the term translational medicine
Translational medicine
Translational medicine is a medical practice based on interventional epidemiology. It is regarded by its proponents as a natural progression from Evidence-Based Medicine. It integrates research from the basic sciences, social sciences and political sciences with the aim of optimising patient care...

 is a misnomer, as medicine is not a science: it is the clinical practice of healing the given individual whereas science addresses principles and populations. This distinction is the primary reason that science needs to be translated at all. "Translational medicine" would best be termed "Translational medical science".

Comparison to basic research or applied research

Translational research is a paradigm for research alternative to the dichotomy of basic research
Basic Research
Basic Research is an herbal supplement and cosmetics manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, Utah that distributes products through a large number of subsidiaries. In addition, their products are sold domestically and internationally through a number of high-end retailers. Dennis Gay is the...

 and applied research
Applied research
Applied research is a form of systematic inquiry involving the practical application of science. It accesses and uses some part of the research communities' accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and techniques, for a specific, often state, business, or client driven purpose...

. It is often applied in the domain of medicine but has more general applicability as a distinct research approach. It is also allied in practice with the approaches of participative science and participatory action research
Participatory action research
Participatory action research – or action research – is a recognized form of experimental research that focuses on the effects of the researcher's direct actions of practice within a participatory community with the goal of improving the performance quality of the community or an area of...

.

The traditional categorization of research identifies just two categories: basic research (also labelled fundamental or pure research) and applied research. Basic research is more speculative and takes a long time – often measured in decades – to be applied in any practical context. Basic research often leads to breakthroughs or paradigm-shifts in practice. Applied research on the other hand is characterised as being capable of having an impact in practice within a relatively short time, but would often represent an incremental improvement to current processes rather than delivering radical breakthroughs.

The cultural separation between different scientific fields makes it difficult to establish the multidisciplinary and multi-skilled teams that are necessary to be successful in translational research. Other challenges arise in the traditional incentives which reward individual principal investigators over the types of multi-disciplinary teams that are necessary for translational research. Also, journal publication norms often require tight control of experimental conditions, and these are difficult to achieve in real-world contexts.

Outside of the medical domain, this mode of research can be applied more generally where researchers seek to shorten the time-frame and conflate the basic-applied continuum to ‘translate’ fundamental research results into practical applications. It is of necessity a much more iterative style of research with low and permeable barriers and a great deal of interaction between academic research and industry practice. Practitioners help shape the research agenda in supplying what may be intractable problems to which applied research approaches will only offer incremental improvements.

Challenges in translational research

To flourish translational research requires a knowledge-driven ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

, in which constituents generate, contribute, manage and analyze data available from all parts of the landscape. The goal is a continuous feedback loop to accelerate the translation of data into knowledge. Collaboration, data sharing, data integration
Data integration
Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of these data.This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial and scientific domains...

 and standards are integral. Only by seamlessly structuring and integrating these data types will the complex and underlying causes and outcomes of illness be revealed, and effective prevention, early detection and personalized treatments be realized.

Translational research requires that information and data flow from hospitals, clinics and participants of studies in an organized and structured format to repositories and research-based facilities and laboratories. Furthermore, the scale, scope and multi-disciplinary approach that translational research requires means a new level of operations management capabilities within and across studies, repositories and laboratories. Meeting the increased operational requirements of larger studies, with ever increasing specimen counts, larger and more complex systems biology data sets, and government regulations, precipitates an informatics
Informatics (academic field)
Informatics is the science of information, the practice of information processing, and the engineering of information systems. Informatics studies the structure, algorithms, behavior, and interactions of natural and artificial systems that store, process, access and communicate information...

 approach that enables the integration of both operational capabilities and clinical and basic data. Most informatics systems in use today are inadequate in terms of handling the tasks of complicated operations and contextually in data management and analysis.

Definitions of translational research

Translational research is a new and rapidly evolving domain. As such, the definition is bound to evolve over time. Generally speaking, the primary goal of “translational” research is to integrate advancements in molecular biology with clinical trials, taking research from the “bench-to-bedside”.

Websites that help to define translational research:

See also

  • American Journal of Translational Research
    American Journal of Translational Research
    The American Journal of Translational Research is an open-access peer-reviewed medical journal published by the e-Century Publishing Corporation. It is intended to provide a barrier-free forum for rapid dissemination of novel discoveries in translational research of medical science and the relevant...

  • Personalized medicine
    Personalized medicine
    Personalized medicine is a medical model emphasizing in general the customization of healthcare, with all decisions and practices being tailored to individual patients in whatever ways possible...

  • Biomedical research
    Biomedical research
    Biomedical research , in general simply known as medical research, is the basic research, applied research, or translational research conducted to aid and support the body of knowledge in the field of medicine...

  • Systems biology
    Systems biology
    Systems biology is a term used to describe a number of trends in bioscience research, and a movement which draws on those trends. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses...

  • Translational Research Informatics
    Translational research informatics
    Translational Research Informatics is a sister domain to or a sub-domain of Biomedical informatics or Medical Informatics concerned with the application of informatics theory and methods to translational research...

  • Clinical trials
  • Clinical and Translational Science
    Clinical and Translational Science
    Clinical and Translational Science is a peer-reviewed medical journal published six times per year by Wiley-Blackwell. It is an official journal of the Society for Clinical and Translational Science and the Association for Patient Oriented Research. The journal was established in 2008 and is edited...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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