In 2007, the MRC launched a small translational research pilot scheme in the UK involving the dissemination of a discreet amount of research funds and appointment of three translational research (TR) facilitators at various academic institutions scattered across the UK. These facilitators were given titles such “research translators” or “knowledge brokers”, for lack of better terms to describe posts that had never before existed, to ease the exploitation of basic research findings into health-related applications that would one day provide tangible benefits to patients. This ‘pilot’, running alongside recently established, massively-funded, and highly-acclaimed centres funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), will be critically evaluated in 2 years using metrics of success yet to be defined.

I am one such “research translator” based at a top London university. Recruited from abroad by the MRC and the host institution, I was given a relatively small pot of money to support local TR projects after a full blown peer review process. Forced to turn down 90% of our applicants a few months into my post, I was left with the not so pleasant task of having to give people feedback face-to-face (something the MRC and Wellcome Trust never have to do). Most of my time these days is spent telling researchers that what they are proposing to do is not really translational. In many cases, I am tempted to say that basic research is not TR simply because the application includes a few buzz words like “disease prevention, risk, and biomarkers”. I have been accused of wasting people’s time, of being ‘obtuse’ when I find the translational aim of the application unclear, to name a few. Needless to say, being an on-site funding administrator and having to give detailed feedback on failed applications requires one to be a bit thick-skinned. Fortuitously, to the few (less than 90% of applicants) who actually want to understand what TR really is and are willing to put the effort required make their projects more fund-able by the emerging number of calls being announced by organizations eager to make TR their new priority, I am a rare but surprisingly highly appreciated resource. With 5 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry translating newly identified and validated disease targets into clinical development, I have knowledge few people in academia would generally come across.

In a recent article in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery titled “Building the bridge from bench to bedside” great accolades were made about the recent progresses in TR, including the erection of vast clinical research centres, establishment of “large networks for clinical trials”, and growing number of clinical scientist posts being opened. While indeed very laudable, this is translational research at the very end of the spectrum, where millions of pounds have already been invested and are currently being overseen and locally disseminated by a select group of people in government and academia, mostly directors of this, that, and the other. What we must not forget, however, is that TR involves a change in research culture starting from the bottom up, a re-education of scientists working at the bench about what bench-to-bedside really is. I do not exaggerate when I say 90% of my applicants still ask me what TR is, and giving them a one line explanation is just not possible. TR is a continuum, a fuzzy transition from basic research to proof-of-concept trials in man, to clinical application, to routine health practice. How do we expect people to do something that they don’t understand?

So why not invest a little more of the 1.7 billion earmarked for TR in the UK for people like me willing to work in the sidelines, dealing with scientists on a day-to-day basis, reading applications, providing feedback, helping them find resources no one at the university seems to have time to help them find, searching funding databases inside-and-out for calls appropriate to individual projects, establishing industry links, providing intellectual property advice, and sometimes just a few words of encouragement? Or maybe the directors can do that…