Invited Commentary November 18, 2024 November 18, 2024

Basic, translational, and clinical research – a short reflection

DOI: 10.20945/2359-4292-2024-0400

Research in endocrinology, like in all other medical disciplines, covers a broad continuum including basic science, translational and clinical research. Translational research aims at bridging the gap between scientific science, clinical, epidemiological and population studies into practical clinical applications. While translational research is often conceptualized as a unidirectional process from “bench to bedside” or “bedside to bench“, it is not a unidirectional process but a dynamic and cyclical approach. Importantly, the borders between the various approaches are not always clearly defined; rather, they should be viewed as part of a spectrum.

The field of endocrinology is particularly well suited to illustrate the dynamic interactions between the different types of research. For example, the critical role of the pancreas in the pathophysiology of diabetes mellitus was discovered by removing the organ from dogs (). Then, in 1921, Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolated insulin from canine pancreas tissue (). This groundbreaking work would be best defined as “basic research”. It was followed by the first successful treatment of a human patient with diabetes mellitus in 1922 (), hence “translational research”. Further work was needed to develop purification methods for insulin to make it suitable for larger scale use. This led to the first clinical research trials and widespread treatment of diabetes patients with insulin. Modifications of the insulin preparations in the 1930s then led to longer-acting insulin preparations, improving treatment regimens.

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