The concept of translational research [1] has received very strong focus in the biomedical community over the last few years, as a new way of thinking about and conducting life sciences research to accelerate healthcare outcomes. Global Pharmaceutical companies and the NIH [2] have been pouring billions of dollars into life sciences basic research and are realizing the return on investment is not living up to expectations, and Translational Research is often seen as the key missing component. The NIH, through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards [3], is funding major infrastructure and support for Translational Research in the United States.

With its focus on removing barriers to multi-disciplinary collaboration, translational research has the potential to drive the advancement of molecular-based medicine. By enabling physicians and pharmacologists to leverage systems biology technologies, translational research can enable early detection of cancer and other diseases, increase efficiency in drug development, improve drug efficacy and enable personalized medicine.

The possibilities of using biomarkers to predict, detect, and monitor disease make personalized medicine tangible. Only when clinicians, researchers and the various operational staff can work together effectively, will the movement of scientific discoveries accelerate into the clinic and clinical findings more rapidly fuel research directions.

To fully realize this vision, translational research requires researchers and clinicians to have ready access to two critical types of information - (1) clinical information, including data contained in hospital systems and medical records, pathology reports and diagnostic labs, clinical trials systems and study participant questionnaires; and (2) biomolecular information, including genomics, proteomics, medical imaging and other high-throughput molecular and cellular research data.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translational_research 06/03/09