Translational Medicine
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-1025
ISSN: 2161-1025
Martin Wehling
University of Heidelberg, Germany
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Transl Med
Translational medicine was invented about a decade ago both as a catchword and as a novel approach to improve success in drug development and ameliorate the low-output syndrome from collapsing pipelines. Yet, no robust structures such as toolboxes, algorithms, reproducible standards and procedures and assessment tools were developed and/or implemented. Translational medicine is one of the clues to survival of biomedical research, but it definitely has to be filled with scientific and operational substance. By optimizing translational processes from preclinical to clinical stages; this new scientific discipline aims at increasing the yield of biomedical research ultimately leading to improved patient care. One important dimension of this novel science of translational medicine is certainly the assessment of the translational potential of an innovative project. The assessment of translatability as a whole appears as a new challenge to biomedical research as innovation is costing a very high prize due to late attrition of projects, mainly at the clinical stage. The score gives an estimate of the translatability of an early drug project, and may be adapted to early clinical development as well. In this score several factors including evidence from animal models, humans, biomarker validation, pharmacogenomics and other areas are assessed to estimate the translatability of an early drug project.
Martin Wehling, MD, is a full Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Heidelberg. He is also board certified Internist (cardiologist) and has longstanding experiences in basic science (cell physiology, steroid pharmacology, non-genomic steroid actions), clinical trials (translating basic science into human studies) and clinical medicine (invasive cardiology, endocrinology). In 2004, he was appointed by AstraZeneca as Director of discovery (=translational) medicine. In 2007, he returned to his academic position to further translational medicine by aligning academic and private activities to support biomedical innovation. His main tools are connecting distant players in the translational process, developing technological platforms and integrating them into the translational process, assembling, developing and profiling of biomarkers with particular assessment of their predictive value and developing smart translational plans to promote translatable projects.