Clinical pharmacology – providing tools and expertise for translational medicine

Abstract

‘There is an urgent need to develop individuals whohave the ability to combine a firm grounding in theprinciples of basic and clinical pharmacology with themost modern research technologies to addresscomplex (patho)physiological questions’The Wellcome Trust, 2007Those who remember their school Latin will recall theparadigm for regular verbs such as ‘to love’: amo, amare,amavi,amatum–Ilove(present tense), to love (presentinfinitive), I have loved (perfect tense), loved (past parti-ciple). But the paradigm for the verb ‘to carry’ is irregular:ferro,ferre,tuli,latum.It comes,in fact,from three differentroots. And that explains the connection between wordssuch as refer and relate, confer and collate, transfer andtranslate [1].To transfer means to carry over or bring over, and byextension to change over. To translate carries a similarmeaning,to change or adapt to another use.This meaning,which dates from the late 14th century, includes suchimplications as physical or metaphorical transference andthe interchangeability of languages, and it extends themeaning of transfer. ‘Bottom, thou art translated,’ saysSnug in