Talk:Translational medicine

quack usage
There are apparently some legitimate academic programs out there, and the term seems to have mainstream support in the UK. But here in the Americas I've seen some very serious quackery passed off under the rubric of 'translational medicine.' It's almost a red flag, in fact... Should the article reflect this mixed usage? &mdash; Sandover 17:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

translational vs. applied research?
What is the difference between translational and applied research? Or are they exactly the same thing? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 04:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what the first paragraph of this article is saying; it sounds like a press release for an old thing with a new name. What is new about it? Is the claim that doctors used to ignore social and political "science"? If that's what it's supposed to mean, I wonder to what extent it's new; didn't campaigns to eliminate everything from malaria to venereal disease take these things into account? Not to mention anti-smoking campaigns and laws requiring seat belt usage. Then there's the claim that it adds "preventive measures which may extend beyond the provision of healthcare services." Besides the aforementioned anti-smoking and seat belt laws, this seems to ignore vaccinations, water fluoridation, anti-obesity campaigns, PE and health/ sex education in schools, public clinics, and so forth.

Maybe what it means is that there is to be more emphasis on these things. But unless I'm missing s.t. entirely, portraying it as something brand new strikes me as political, not factual. And while it's fine for the Wikipedia to report political opinions, they need to be presented as such, not as hard-and-fast facts.

The next sentence is even worse: "Is the process of turning biological discoveries into drugs and medical devices that can help patients." Ignoring the fact that this sentence lacks a subject (presumably it should be "It", or perhaps better "Translational medicine"), this is even less indicative of any change besides the new name. Medicine has been precisely this process for as long as people have studied biology and anatomy, which is several hundred years (if not more than two thousand years). Putting this differently, if this is what "translational medicine" is, then people have been doing it for an awfully long time.

Further on, the article characterizes Phase 1 TM as "the translation of laboratory-based research into real therapies for real patients." As opposed to fake therapies for manikins, or what? Again, what on earth is supposed to be new about this?

I could go on about whether Phases 2 and 3 are anything new, but I suppose maybe I'm out of my depth; maybe there is a real difference here. What I'll say instead is that instead of reading like a press release, there should be some indication here that (or whether!) this stuff is really new. Maybe the obesity example could be expanded, and preferably contrasted to some earlier methods which are *not* classed as "Translation medicine" (like the examples I gave above of malaria eradication or anti-smoking campaigns).

OK, one more rant: the section entitled "Implications of translational medicine" reads like an editorial, and in fact an editorial in which the following paragraph is a call for more funding for research(ers). I don't have access to the British Medical Journal, so I don't know if that's what it is, but in fact this--and much of the rest of the article--seems to be word-for-word identical with the "Official Blog of Target Health Inc", an organization "committed...to serve the pharmaceutical community". The blog doesn't cite a source; I guess it's possible that the blog lifted it from the article in the BMJ, or conceivably from the Wikipedia--but I wonder if the Wikipedia article isn't substantially copied from this blog or from the BMJ? Mcswell (talk) 22:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

translational is multi-disciplinary applied research
To answer the above question, translational research is the fusing of many disciplines involved throughout the biomedical continuum to accelerate the translation of life sciences discoveries into healthcare outcomes. Translational research is very applied in nature, but the main thrust is multi-disciplinary collaboration in the biomedical community, which often doesn't happen today as much work is silo'd. This is changing. Jdegreef (Talk | contribs) 3 January, 2008 (UTC)

translational research versus translational medicine
If no one minds, I'm going to change this page to better reflect the distinctions between translational research and translational medicine. The term translational research is more broadly used, and is preferred by the NIH. Translational medicine is generally used in the pharmaceutical community, and is a special case of translational research focused on efficacy, toxicity, and targeting of therapeutics (medicines). Many people commonly us "Translational Medicine" and "Personalized Medicine" interchangeably, and wikipedia has a fantastic page on Personalized medicine. Translational research is much broader in scope, focusing on prevention, detection, diagnosis, and other research areas like best practises, and how to translate research from basic to clinical to community to policy. I plan to revamp the translational medicine page, likely renaming it to Translational Research to reflect its broader and more common useage. Jdegreef (Talk | contribs) 3 January, 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the term
It would be useful to know how long this approach to medicine has been current and whether it has opponents as well as supporters.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 03:50, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The most important area of modern drug discovery
The definitions outlined do not capture the clinical need. 1) congruency between endpoints seen in animals and whether they TRANSLATE into humans 2) Dose selection in early clinical trials 3) Defining Target engagement, PD, disease and patient selection b imarkers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.66.5 (talk) 08:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Epidemiology??
Regarding translational medicine as some special subject within interventional epidemiology is rather nonsensical. This article needs to be completely re-written by an expert in the field to bring it up to standard. Translational medicine is much, much more than what is described here. (And in some senses less: I fail to see what "political sciences" have to do with this...) --Guillaume2303 (talk) 10:57, 19 September 2012 (UTC)


 * When you come across a really duff article, it is often best to just scrub it and start afresh. Personally, I would far prefer an accurate and sane stub or start class article to some of the horrific essays and cobbled together crud that pass for C (or even "old" B) articles. However, I know next to zilch about this subject, so I cannot help you. Please see: WP:BOLD. --Mais oui! (talk) 11:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

A better intro & merging 3 articles?
The current intro to this article (which is virtually the same as that in two other articles - translational research & translational science) is not helpful. I found a better one on Google which is attributed to Wikipedia, but it must have been an earlier edit(?): Translational medicine (also referred to as translational science) is a discipline within biomedical and public health research that aims to improve the health of individuals and the community by ``translating findings into diagnostic tools, medicines, procedures, policies and education.''

Also it seems like the 3 articles on "translational " are similar enough that they should be candidates for a merger under one or another of the terms.--A12n (talk) 14:27, 5 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I think this article should be merged into Translational research, which already covers more of the same ground and has been classified C-class. The best title of these three?  Surely it must be "translational medicine", since that at least gives the layperson a clue that we're talking about medicine — helping treat disease.  So what's the next step?  I've never proposed a merge before this.  yoyo (talk) 07:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Clarify definition
I would like to add that the ultimate purpose of Translational Medicine is to improve human health via the "bench to bedside" approach. According to the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, "translational medicine bridges across the discovery, development, regulation, and utilization spectirum."

I would also like to point to this article as a reference for the definition of Clinical and Translational Medicine: Wang X. A new vision of definition, commentary, and understanding in clinical and translational medicine. Clinical and Translational Medicine 2012;1:5

Please let me know if it is okay to make these additionsClinPharmMMH (talk) 18:30, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

European Society for Translational Medicine article
I forgot the summary of my edit. I changed the url of the first source, as the doi link gives an error. The article is available under a paid access on Science Direct. — Nalou (talk) 12:24, 7 August 2021 (UTC)