Friday 24 July 2015
Thursday 23 July 2015
Monday 20 July 2015
Translational Research In Biomedical Sciences In India- The Changing Mindset
There is no denying the fact that Science has sneaked into every sphere of life and has turned into a vital force for the betterment of humankind. Words are less to express its indispensability since life seems to be impossible without it. Recall the overwhelming discovery of “Rabies vaccine” by Louis Pasteur (clinical research) to Antibiotics by Alexander Fleming (Basic research) had impinged the lives positively. Having a glimpse on the snapshot of world war II, science came out as a savior for millions of amputations and lives and has encroached deepen into lives of people. An amelioration and headway in the field of scientific technologies has paved the ways towards more advanced and educated society.
Similarly translational research which also refers to as “bench to bedside” enterprises the translation of knowledge from the basic sciences into the development of new treatments. Translational research had opened a chasm between basic research and clinical research. Translational research has not only lessen the wide gap (valley of death) between biomedical and clinical research but this abyss labeled as 'valley of death' has been left behind and bridged up to an extent by translational research only. The view has changed today since neither the clinicians nor the basic scientists feel hesitant to communicate.
Whether it is translational or basic research, it has evolved with a fast pace where diverse stakeholders such as scientists, pharmaceutical companies, public, government and their policies are coming ahead with an emerging face of investing in training, research and infrastructure. Funding agencies hope that this will break down barriers in the transformation of basic-science breakthroughs into clinical applications ('bench to bedside') and enable more research on human subjects and samples to generate hypotheses that are more relevant to people than to animal models. What needs for translational biomedical research to be effective? What kind of changes (where) in mindset is required to bridge up the gap of valley of death? In this article, we will enlighten the approaches and changes that are required to make translational biomedical research an effective one.
The very first and foremost breakthrough will come by changing the mindset of both the basic science researchers as well clinicians. Respecting and showing equal status for each other’s field will surely make up an alarming change the mindset towards both sides of coin. Really, even nowadays both the basic research scientists and clinicians are summing up their skills and resources in such a way that translational research is turning up to be more effective. Since translational research is an arising new field, exactly defining it seems to be difficult, asking ten researchers will provide ten different answers in different aspects but in spite of being such different opinions “National Institute of Health” succinctly defines it as the movement of discoveries in basic research to application at the clinical level of scientific discipline. The side where translational research” is becoming an extremely popular buzzword in the world of biomedical research, the ugly side lies in the fact that the researchers in both the sides of basic science as well the clinicians does not recognize each other’s field. Without having a same feeling of equal respect towards each other fields a meteoric rise in this field will always remain a dream so communication gap between these two has to be erased. Since both areas have their own style, strength and their own respective preferences depending on their backgrounds. The findings of basic science although sometimes are shelved without any obvious immediate use, but what if? We will not explore uncharted areas of knowledge since this is the sort of thing that can revolutionize science. On the contrary, applied research although has a specific goal in mind from the very beginning which clearly makes it easier for results to be used outside of academia, this is the only reason behind the fact applied research has become much more attractive to funding agencies than the basic science research. But actually if we enlighten a torch behind on the real fact behind these two dwellings it is quite obvious that despite of being their separate goals the types of results they yield are more often the same. So to fill the gap, researchers from both the fields must come up forward with an open mindset towards each others fields and expect for the goods to come up in field of translational research. Many more questions still remains to be answered such as do we need to ask basic scientists to work on translational research and vice versa? No, I believe what immensely needed is to maintain balance between the both side of coin.
One approach is to flung the boundaries and have common goals which entails betterment of the society. From the beginning of identifying unmet needs to formulate the hypothesis, both communities should cooperate with joining hands also what is required is exchanging the knowledge, building up concepts on each other’s idea and formulating well defined questions in same direction. In this way, the day is never far away both the basic as well as clinical science will go side by side with equity. We need to clearly define who plays what role and who is responsible for each move into clinical use. Communication gap has fenced such a mess that specification has become need of hour on behalf of clarifying the duties and responsibility of respective person. A strong coordination, may surely lay down the basis of a sturdy process of translation research.
Another encroachment required is to make sure that enough number of recruitments comes up for both not only for the basic research scientists but also for the clinicians. In some cases we can have a third party as facilitator to connect the basic researchers and clinicians. Altogether this is feasible only when both communities have equal thinking of approach equal respect, understanding for each other and break up the boundaries of their different mindset.
In the academic and clinical set up, we have limited resources. Pharma companies are the one who takes the clinical findings into the large-scale level. Basic researchers, clinicians and pharma companies are the three pillars of the translational biomedical research. Academic institutions and pharma companies are always act as separate entities. There should be more collaborative projects between academic and pharma companies. There should be a facilitator who can ease the job of technology transfer to the companies. Technology Business Incubators should be created in the academic institutions to speed up the commercialization of Research and Development output. Pharma companies should offer academic programs like postdoctoral fellowships to bridge the gap between industry and academia.
Academia needs a lot of reforms and regulations to change their evaluation criteria. The side where it is mandatory to have first authorship paper to attain a PhD degree, itself makes the students to work in a biased direction, which is keenly focused specially towards getting a research paper. Even scientists are being evaluated on basis of what they publish. Failed results and negative results have no respectful place in academic environment. These constraints make scientists to work for their survival in their field and prevent them to have long-term goals. Apart from this good governance, corruption free environment, efficient system, more autonomous and fair competition is necessary to speed up the process of academic research.
On a positive note, India has created multidisciplinary institutions like NCR-Biocluster region and Bangalore Biocluster (where the basic scientists and clinicians were asked to quorum under single roof) to link different stakeholders. Institutions like Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) have initiated a number of schemes to bridge the existing gaps between industry and academia.
Considering all these factors, the change in the mindset of different stakeholder is at the initial level but not yet reached its zenith. India needs to travel a long way to bridge the gap between basic and clinical research. New set of kick-start is required to speed up the momentum of a changing mindset of researchers.
Written by,
Nidhi Kaushik, Third year PhD student
S.Chandru, Fourth year PhD student
Impact factor vs impact
Its true that many landmark discoveries were published in high impact factor journals, for example the famous papers of Watson & Crick “Molecular structure of nucleic acids” in 1953 in “Nature”, and that single paper provided a new landscape in diverse field of biological science including healthcare, agricultural science, basic laboratory research and so what we call it the impact on different aspects of human society. But with the branding of such journal later it became a trend to publish in high impact factor journals. Ultimately we are deviating from our original goal and join only in a “race” to publish with high impact factor and we really misunderstand the original meaning of the word “impact”.
Now the scenario is changing and society is asking for the impact of what they invest in science on human life and it’s a really valid question. If people are investing on science and not getting much from it then why should they not invest funds to exiting technology and optimization of available resources to make public life easier? But that is also not the correct way as in future where from the new technology is coming out without any investment in research and how a nation becomes competitive on global standards without new technology platform. So it’s the time to go for “impact” not for impact factor.
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