A Bidirectional Concept

Translational Medicine – a Bidirectional Concept

Translational medicine will encourage the flow of information from the laboratory to the clinic, and in the same way, it should be encouraged from the clinic back to the laboratory. This means that translational medicine, as a concept, is a bi-directional concept, encompassing:

  • Bench-to-bedside factors, which aim to increase the efficiency by which new therapeutic strategies developed through basic research are tested clinically, and
  • Bedside-to-bench factors, which provide feedback about the applications of new treatments and how they can be improved.

Currently, advances in the understanding of biologic systems and the development of powerful new tools that can be applied at both the bench and the bedside - genomics, proteomics, transgenic animal models, structural biology, biochemistry, imaging technologies and artificial intelligence - offer unprecedented prospects for advancing knowledge of human disorders in this bi-directional translational context.

Translational medicine seeks to coordinate the use of new knowledge in clinical practice and to incorporate clinical observations and questions into scientific hypotheses in the laboratory. It also facilitates the characterisation of disease processes and the generation of novel hypotheses based on direct human observation.

Continuous feedback and communication among the diverse players in this field are essential for success.