P.Mean: Definition of translational research (created 2011-12-31). News: Sign up for "The Monthly Mean," the newsletter that dares to call itself average, www.pmean.com/news.

Nice article, but I have to disagree with bullet point #3.

>We need to understand the focus on short-term translation for the fallacy
>that it is, and stop asking grant applicants to focus on this. Science is
>almost never translational in the short term. Only once ideas are of
>sufficient maturity that they are no longer innovative is it time to
>translate them into beneficial applications.

This comment falsely implies that there is no science and no innovation in translation. Even worse, it reduces translation to a mundane task beneath the dignity of the truly brilliant thinkers among us.

Really good translational research is much harder and more innovative than you give it credit for. It requires a broadly interdisciplinary approach that is often beyond the capabilities of any one individual scientist. It often has to consider the psychological aspects of getting patients (and health care professionals) to change long ingrained behaviors. It can require early and regular feedback from community leaders. It needs to carefully define outcomes that are directly relevant to the patients that this research is intended to help.

It's been my opinion for quite some time that many people slap the term "translational" onto their basic science studies to make them sound as if they are more directly relevant to individual patients and the community than they truly are. If you're doing basic science, be proud of it and call it basic science. Highlight the value of knowledge for knowledge's sake. Underscore the importance of unexpected applications of new basic research findings. Please don't throw in "translational" as a buzzword just because you think it will increase your chances of getting funded. Don't say it unless you mean it.

http://blog.the-scientist.com/2011/09/01/why-science-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/

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