Opportunities and challenges in translational science

Abstract

The mission of translational science is to bring predictivity and efficiency to the development and dissemination of interventions that improve human health. Ten years ago this year, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences was founded to embody, conduct, and support this new discipline. The Center's first decade has brought substantial progress across a broad range of translational areas, from diagnostic and drug development to clinical trials to implementation science to education. The origins of the translational science and advances to this point are reviewed here and allow the establishment of an ambitious future research agenda for the field.

FIGURE 1

“The Drug Discovery, Development and Deployment Map (small molecule version)” by Wagner et al. The map is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution‐Share Alike 4.0. cGMP, current good manufacturing practice; EMR, electronic medical record; FDA, US Food and Drug Administration; GLP, good laboratory practice; GMP, good manufacturing practice; HTS, high‐throughput screening; IND, investigational new drug; IRB, institutional review board; NCE/NME, new chemical entity/new molecular entity; PK/PD, pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic; POC, point of care

FIGURE 2

Major rate‐limiting translational problems that are the focus of Translational Science. *Identified in the Drug Development Map (18, Supplemental Figure SB) as being particularly prone to failure, delay in progression, and/or high cost and therefore high priority for innovation. IP, intellectual property; IRB, institutional review board

FIGURE 3

NCATS Strategic Principles. NCATS, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences

FIGURE 4

NCATS Translational Science Spectrum. NCATS, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences