Found in Translation: Give and Take Between Research and Practice Means Better Care for Kids

BY KRISTA CONGER

WINTER 2003 - It's a safe bet that every clinician who has struggled to treat a suffering child has wished for immediate access to a safer, gentler, more effective therapy or diagnostic technique.

But physicians who want to improve care for their patients have only a few choices: scan the recent medical literature for pertinent new advances; chat up scientists in the hope of unearthing an undiscovered gem of helpful research; or -- a relatively recent option -- venture into the laboratory themselves.

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This last alternative has the advantage of sending into the trenches those who know best how to design a research project that can answer specific, relevant clinical questions: is the current standard medication the most effective; what biological pathways are malfunctioning in a disease; or which molecule is the most likely target for new therapies.

Despite the obvious benefits, bedside-to-bench research runs counter to the once prevailing idea that advances in medicine arise primarily via a one-way street -- one that begins with scientists, who in the course of their research stumble upon findings with unexpected clinical implications, and ends with physicians who administer the new-found therapies to their patients.

Now there is a growing realization that so-called translational medicine works most effectively as a circle of care, from bench to bedside and back to the bench. A free, two-way flow of ideas can be encouraged by productive collaborations between physicians and researchers. Individuals who represent the intersection of both disciplines have the unique opportunity to pinpoint and solve the disorders that are making their patients sick.

Packard Children's Hospital supports many different projects that fall under the auspices of translational medicine. The scope of the following samples is broad, but they share a common goal: better care for sick kids.