Can someone who's done clinical/translational research...

[alwaysaangel]

Give me an example of what translational research is? I get the basic concept and definition of it - but I can't think of an example that wouldn't take decades to get from the bench to clinical part. And google isn't being very helpful.

Also, is clinical research always just doing clinical trials for a new treatment/drug to determine the efficacy? Or is there something else it can be?

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[spicedmanna]

Give me an example of what translational research is? I get the basic concept and definition of it - but I can't think of an example that wouldn't take decades to get from the bench to clinical part. And google isn't being very helpful.

e.g., http://www.caligiurilab.com/4102.cfm

 

[MrChang]

Give me an example of what translational research is? I get the basic concept and definition of it - but I can't think of an example that wouldn't take decades to get from the bench to clinical part. And google isn't being very helpful.

Also, is clinical research always just doing clinical trials for a new treatment/drug to determine the efficacy? Or is there something else it can be?

heres an example: your lab finds a new oncogene. you then screen small molecules for their ability to knock this gene down in vitro. then you move to a xenograft animal model. cells in the model overexp your gene of interest. in the mice you find that the cmpd knocks down the gene and decreases tumor growth rate. you confirm with a tissue array that this oncogene is infact overexpressed in humans with a poor 5 year survival rate. do some pharmokinetics and toxicology studies in mice. optomize the dose. then move into clinical trials. this sorta thing is very standard at the cancer center where i do research.

 

[LizzyM]

Give me an example of what translational research is? I get the basic concept and definition of it - but I can't think of an example that wouldn't take decades to get from the bench to clinical part. And google isn't being very helpful.

Also, is clinical research always just doing clinical trials for a new treatment/drug to determine the efficacy? Or is there something else it can be?

Clinical research just means collecting data from patients/human subjects or using data that comes from human subjects. In addition to clinical trials, it includes all epidemiologic studies (natural history of disease, demographics of the affected populations, risk factors/protective factors) as well as outcome studies (e.g. quality of life, cost effectiveness).

 

[alwaysaangel]

Clinical research just means collecting data from patients/human subjects or using data that comes from human subjects. In addition to clinical trials, it includes all epidemiologic studies (natural history of disease, demographics of the affected populations, risk factors/protective factors) as well as outcome studies (e.g. quality of life, cost effectiveness).

So would this also include the chart reviews I've seen mentioned around here where a person is just going through charts of past patients looking for patterns relevant to whatever they're researching?

And could 'quality of care' type research be considered clinical research. To me that seems almost more like a public health kind of thing but I was reading some abstracts for family medicine research focusing on that. Is that considered clinical research?

 

[bbabul01]

So would this also include the chart reviews I've seen mentioned around here where a person is just going through charts of past patients looking for patterns relevant to whatever they're researching?

And could 'quality of care' type research be considered clinical research. To me that seems almost more like a public health kind of thing but I was reading some abstracts for family medicine research focusing on that. Is that considered clinical research?

Clinical Research
"Study of drug, biologic or device in human subjects with the intent to discover potential beneficial effects and/or determine its safety and efficacy. Also called clinical study and clinical investigation. Note that in this manual, this term is used in its narrow sense as used by the FDA. Thus, it does not encompass all the research that is carried out in the clinical setting (e.g., health services research)."


The FDA considers it the study of drugs, etc. However, there are a million things that you can do in the scope of clinical research. In my opinion, if it it has clinical implications for patient care, it's clinical research.

 

[LizzyM]

So would this also include the chart reviews I've seen mentioned around here where a person is just going through charts of past patients looking for patterns relevant to whatever they're researching?

And could 'quality of care' type research be considered clinical research. To me that seems almost more like a public health kind of thing but I was reading some abstracts for family medicine research focusing on that. Is that considered clinical research?

Yes, my interpretation of the word covers what you have described, unlike the FDA definition which is more narrowly focused around drugs and devices.

 

[alwaysaangel]

Thanks very much guys!