The Challenges and Opportunities of Translational Pathology

Abstract

Translational pathology has not caught up with the quality and quantity of translational medicine. Thus, challenges and opportunities related to translational pathology are discussed here. Pathologists should actively participate in reverse translational research that seeks mechanistic insights to explain clinical findings and/or solve clinical problems. Challenges in translational pathology include ambiguity in defining translational pathology, pathologists' mindsets about translational research, lack of sufficient workforce and immature publication outlets. However, with collective wisdom and support of various stakeholders, we can expand the pool of pathologist scientists, build a translational pathology community and drive innovations in medicine through computational, molecular genetic/genomic and digital pathology approaches.

Keywords: Omics; Translational medicine; Translational pathology; clinical and translational research award.

Fig. 1.. Changes in Journal Impact Factors and citations of selected journals focused on translational research, 2010–2022.

(a) The Journal Impact Factor® increased in more than half of the 19 selected journals focused on translational research. (b) Annual citations increased in all of the selected journals.