ABSTRACT

Strategies built upon ‘omic’ technologies should provide mechanistic insight leading to the identification of biomarkers or panels that would be useful in diagnosis, patient stratification and disease state monitoring; all aspects key to markedly enhanced patient care. In medical research, the terms ‘translational medicine’ and ‘translational research’ while widely used have a variety of definitions and interpretations. Clearly pharmacogenomics offers the potential of using DNA-based diagnostic tests to develop therapeutic products that are efficacious and safe for specific populations. Leigh Anderson suggests that the process of moving the fruit of proteomics platforms towards a clinical diagnostic is thwarted by the lack of an integrated diagnostic development paradigm. In the world of academic medicine, translational research is poised at the threshold of becoming the engine of a massive improvement in predictive, preventive and personalized medicine. In the pharmaceutical industry, translational research lies between preclinical research in cellular and animal model systems and proof of concept and dose selection in humans.