%0 Journal Article
%T Clinical and translational medicine: Integrative and practical science.
%A Edward Abraham
%A Francesco M Marincola
%A Zhinan Chen
%A Xiangdong Wang
%J Clinical and Translational Medicine
%D 2012
%I Springer
%R 10.1186/2001-1326-1-1
%X Clinical and translational science has been defined as a novel attempt to "translate remarkable scientific innovations into health gains", and is a critical and core component of full-spectrum biomedical research [1]. Translational research as a key word was emphasized and headlined in the National Institutes of Health guide for Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grants for cancer research [2]. Furthermore, translational science has been defined as a two-way process to translate discoveries from the bench into clinical application and/or the translation of clinical findings into the understanding of molecular mechanisms [3,4]. Given the growing impact of scientific knowledge and discoveries on clinical practice, translational medicine was initially described as "the marriage between new discoveries in basic science and clinical practice" [5]. Clinical and translational medicine can be used to understand the mechanisms of clinical variation between diseases, pathogenesis, biomarkers, and therapies. For example, translational medicine is involved in determining optimal regimens to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. The efficacy and safety of drugs selected from pre-clinical animal models can be translated into applicable and therapeutic approaches for clinical trials [6].Clinical and translational medicine plays a unique and critical role in fostering the flow of bidirectional information between basic and clinical scientists, optimizing new biotechnologies, improving clinical application of new therapeutic concepts, and ultimately improving the quality of life for patients. Clinical and translational medicine integrates clinical research with modern methodologies in systems and computational biology, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, pharmacomics, transcriptomics, and high-throughput image analysis. It should also foster the implementation of human tissue banking, and the development of bio-banks linked to high quality clinical data bas
%U http://www.clintransmed.com/content/1/1/1