Lost in Translation: Obstacles to Translational Medicine
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BioMed Central
Open Access
Commentary
Lost in Translation: Obstacles to Translational Medicine Stacey P Mankoff*1, Christian Brander2, Soldano Ferrone3 and Francesco M Marincola4 Address: 1Pharmaceutical Division, International Quality & Productivity Center, New York, NY, 2Partners AIDS Research Center, Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, 3Department of Immunology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY and 4Immunogenetics Section, Department of Transfusion Medicine, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD Email: Stacey P Mankoff* - [email protected]; Christian Brander - [email protected]; Soldano Ferrone - [email protected]; Francesco M Marincola - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 18 May 2004 Journal of Translational Medicine 2004, 2:14
Received: 03 May 2004 Accepted: 18 May 2004
This article is available from: http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/2/1/14 © 2004 Mankoff et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.
Abstract 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.
In addressing issues for Translational Medicine, we categorize the hurdles faced by our colleagues as follows:
Semantics What's in a name? A name defines a concept which in turn may shape a vision. Therefore, it may behoove us to establish a common understanding of the definition of "translational medicine" to frame our expectations or frustrations. For most, "translational medicine" (or "translational research") describes a uni-directional effort to test in humans novel therapeutic strategies developed through experimentation. This would suffice if animal or other experimental models were representative of human pathology, but this remains to be determined [8-10]. as well summarized by Herbert Slade's: "there are no good animal models, but some are useful." In addition, translational medicine may include the development of new
devices or novel diagnostic tools. Moreover, we suggested in a previous
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