Connecting the dots in translational research

Abstract

Translational research is currently one of the top priorities for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), as recently highlighted by its Director, Francis Collins (An audience with... Francis Collins. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 10, 14 (2011))1. The rise of this concept has been fuelled by the widely held belief that major investments in basic biomedical research will not bear fruit in terms of new medicines without new initiatives or approaches to bridge the 'valley of death' that is considered to be a key cause for the stalling of industry pipelines. Indeed, such is the power of this concept that it has recently led to structural reconfiguration of the NIH to create the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), which was formally authorized by the US Congress in December 2011. The fiscal year 2012 budget for the NCATS was ~US$574 million and it is requesting ~$639 million for 2013 (Ref. 2).