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Translational Medicine - doing it backwards

In recent years the concept of "translational medicine" has been advanced in an attempt to catalyze the medical applications of basic biomedical research. However, there has been little discussion about the readiness of scientists themselves to respond to what we believe is a required new...

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Autores principales: Nussenblatt, Robert B, Marincola, Francesco M, Schechter, Alan N
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831830/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20132543
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-8-12
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author Nussenblatt, Robert B
Marincola, Francesco M
Schechter, Alan N
author_facet Nussenblatt, Robert B
Marincola, Francesco M
Schechter, Alan N
author_sort Nussenblatt, Robert B
collection PubMed
description In recent years the concept of "translational medicine" has been advanced in an attempt to catalyze the medical applications of basic biomedical research. However, there has been little discussion about the readiness of scientists themselves to respond to what we believe is a required new approach to scientific discovery if this new concept is to bear fruit. The present paradigm of hypothesis-driven research poorly suits the needs of biomedical research unless efforts are spent in identifying clinically relevant hypotheses. The dominant funding system favors hypotheses born from model systems and not humans, bypassing the Baconian principle of relevant observations and experimentation before hypotheses. Here, we argue that that this attitude has born two unfortunate results: lack of sufficient rigor in selecting hypotheses relevant to human disease and limitations of most clinical studies to certain outcome parameters rather than expanding knowledge of human pathophysiology; an illogical approach to translational medicine. If we wish to remain true to our responsibility and duty of performing research relevant to human disease, we must begin to think about fundamental new approaches. NIH is the nation's medical research agency - making important medical discoveries that improve health and save lives. NIH is the steward of medical and behavioral research for the Nation. Its mission is science in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability [1].
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spelling pubmed-28318302010-03-04 Translational Medicine - doing it backwards Nussenblatt, Robert B Marincola, Francesco M Schechter, Alan N J Transl Med Editorial In recent years the concept of "translational medicine" has been advanced in an attempt to catalyze the medical applications of basic biomedical research. However, there has been little discussion about the readiness of scientists themselves to respond to what we believe is a required new approach to scientific discovery if this new concept is to bear fruit. The present paradigm of hypothesis-driven research poorly suits the needs of biomedical research unless efforts are spent in identifying clinically relevant hypotheses. The dominant funding system favors hypotheses born from model systems and not humans, bypassing the Baconian principle of relevant observations and experimentation before hypotheses. Here, we argue that that this attitude has born two unfortunate results: lack of sufficient rigor in selecting hypotheses relevant to human disease and limitations of most clinical studies to certain outcome parameters rather than expanding knowledge of human pathophysiology; an illogical approach to translational medicine. If we wish to remain true to our responsibility and duty of performing research relevant to human disease, we must begin to think about fundamental new approaches. NIH is the nation's medical research agency - making important medical discoveries that improve health and save lives. NIH is the steward of medical and behavioral research for the Nation. Its mission is science in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability [1]. BioMed Central 2010-02-08 /pmc/articles/PMC2831830/ /pubmed/20132543 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-8-12 Text en Copyright ©2010 Nussenblatt et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 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.
spellingShingle Editorial
Nussenblatt, Robert B
Marincola, Francesco M
Schechter, Alan N
Translational Medicine - doing it backwards
title Translational Medicine - doing it backwards
title_full Translational Medicine - doing it backwards
title_fullStr Translational Medicine - doing it backwards
title_full_unstemmed Translational Medicine - doing it backwards
title_short Translational Medicine - doing it backwards
title_sort translational medicine - doing it backwards
topic Editorial
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831830/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20132543
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-8-12
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