What Is Translational Research?
In translational research, results travel rapidly from the research lab, through clinical trials, and on to patients at a much faster pace than traditional research. Scientists, researchers, and doctors all work in concert to quickly get what's found out in the lab to the point where it can start making people well. It's frequently referred to as “bench to bedside” research, the bench being the lab, the bedside meaning treatment centers. The discoveries that begin at “the bench” are research at the most basic molecular or cellular level. Eventually, those findings are tested and then used on cancer patients. The goal of the process is a quick real-life response to what is discovered in the lab and relies on a coordinated approach with all the disciplines involved, such as microbiology and epidemiology.
Fact
A consortium called Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) brings together academic health centers throughout the nation for the purpose of forming an interdisciplinary approach of investigators and research teams to promote innovative research that could be used in the front lines of clinical practice.
Translational research is often not funded by pharmaceutical companies or other private sources and relies on grants. Breast cancer is considered a varied illness with many different behaviors and characteristics. It takes many different kinds of scientists and researchers to look at these differences with the goal of combining efforts to complete clinical trials in a timely and successful manner through sharing of specimens, basic research, and working together for the goal of prevention and cure.
Essential
In the fall of 2008, the three major U.S. television networks — CBS, ABC, and NBC — joined to raise money for traditional research with a nationwide telethon. The “Stand Up to Cancer” telethon raised more than $100 million. This brought an increased awareness to the importance of research and for out-of-the-box thinking with a vision of finding a cure.
With research funding being compromised during hard economic times, translational research efforts move fast at a lower cost than traditional research. One new discovery is the development of the drug Herceptin, which targets the cancer-friendly HER-2 protein. Development of this drug was made possible by an innovative translational research award from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) led by Dr. Dennis Slamon of UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. This drug is now being used to treat women with HER-2 positive breast cancer patients who are, as a result, living longer.
