RVB Translational Medicine Book

“There is a bright idea or healthcare innovation and a firstin-man
study has been done, so it is beautifully translated
from the lab to human. But then, boom, still nobody knows
whether it works or has impact in daily medical practice.”
Carl Moons
Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care
“From my perspective, we can only speak of
Translational Medicine when research results are
applicable to the end-users. These end-users would
include patients or care providers, and not only
research going from the bench to the first-in-man
studies.” For Carl it is obvious, “Medical science is often
too discovery-driven. It is sexy to discover things or
develop innovations, but not to validate or test these
discoveries in the context for which the innovation is
eventually to be applied. And that is what is needed
before taking wide scale implementation of any
innovation into practice. I used to be the same, in a
way. We finished a phase 3 trial, described it in a
beautiful paper, published it in a high impact journal
and went on with the next trial. What I should have
done is pick up the result, further explain it where
needed, and bring it to the relevant stakeholders to
make sure it entered the clinical guidelines.”
Carl continues, “To me, Translational Medicine often
seems less translational than it should be. Researchers
and research teams often stop too early. From the start
of the idea or conception of the innovation, we should
work much more in multidisciplinary teams. This is
needed in the entire chain to bring the idea into daily
practice. Then Translational Medicine will be fully
translational, and much more effective and impactful.
It moves from discovery- and technology-driven to
impact- and fit-for-purpose-driven. If you talk about
decision support systems, for example, the end-users
are you and I, and actually the whole population.
Developing a decision support system or some
e-health app is one thing, but evaluating whether it
indeed has true impact on the health of the actual
end-users in the intended context of the app is
something else.”
UMC Utrecht 37