Science Magazine: The Basics of Translation

Science 18 January 2013: 
Vol. 339 no. 6117 p. 250 
DOI: 10.1126/science.1234799

• EDITORIAL

The Basics of Translation

1. Huda Y. Zoghbi

1. Huda Y. Zoghbi is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; professor of Pediatrics, Molecular and Human Genetics, and Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine; and director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, TX.

1. E-mail: hzoghbi@bcm.edu.

CREDIT: PAUL KUNTZ/TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

The past 20 years have witnessed great advances in understanding the causes of many medical disorders, while also revealing how complex their pathogenesis can be. Hypertension, autism, and Alzheimer's disease have each proven to be a collection of disorders with multiple causes. Although the dream of personalized treatments has been realized for a few disorders, particularly in the field of cancer, the translation of scientific discoveries into effective treatments for other diseases has been much slower than expected. There are two main reasons for this fact: the complexity of human physiology, and our limited understanding of how the vast majority of genes, proteins, and RNAs work, irrespective of whether they are disease-associated or not.

Traditionally, such fundamental knowledge has come from untargeted, discovery-driven basic research. In recent years, however, the pressure to develop treatments at an ever more rapid pace has attenuated enthusiasm for deciphering the language of life. Science, like most human endeavors, is susceptible to fads and fashions driven by money and status; and today many highly qualified basic scientists feel compelled to jump on the "translational medicine" bandwagon. For quite some time, it has been apparent that biomedical research in the United States is more likely to get funded if it is tied to a practical outcome, such as a step toward a cure for some disorder. There is no doubt that such targeted and in-depth disease-oriented research is sorely needed. But it is at least as important to support investigators dedicated to discovery-driven basic research.

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