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Introduction to Translational Research: Connecting Scientists and Medical Doctors

Understand the emerging discipline of translational medicine and the process of taking research from ‘benchside’ to ‘bedside'.

12,057 enrolled on this course

  • Duration

    6 weeks
  • Weekly study

    2 hours

Translational medicine, also known as translational science or translational research, is a new, growing discipline in medicine that aims to ensure research flows from ‘benchside’ to ‘bedside’.

This means translating medical research findings into clinical treatment options, drug development and diagnostic tools, as well as bringing clinical difficulties back to the research bench for further development.

Explore how translational medicine works

In this course, you will examine the steps from benchside (research) to bedside (clinical) that translational medicine follows - starting with identifying a disease and following on through drug development and preclinical trials.

You’ll learn from expert educators, including the president of TMU, Professor Yen - a world-class scholar who specialises in translational medicine related to cancer.

Understand the importance of multidisciplinary medicine

Using a multidisciplinary approach examining research that spans both biology and medicine, you’ll look at the gaps between lab research and clinical practice and learn how they can be filled by working collaboratively.

This is a good opportunity for healthcare workers to bring clinical questions into the research lab and ask researchers: ‘could you help us to solve this problem by developing new treatment materials?’

Key things you’ll learn on this course:

  1. The basic principles of translational medicine
  2. How translational medicine has a lot of potential
  3. Basic knowledge of medical-related research, from drug-development, animal research, to clinical trial
  4. How academic scientific research and clinical scientific research can collaborate together.
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Skip to 0 minutes and 6 seconds Hello, everyone, My name is Austin. Today, I am going to take you on to a new journey where you can see a new science and to see many new gadgets. However, before I start, I would like to introduce a new concept of science. And it is called “Translational Medicine.” So, what is translational medicine? Translational medicine is new medical-research concept that brings two distinctive groups of researchers toward to a common goal. It connects the medical doctors, or the MDs, which have tremendous amount of experience on the clinical side. with the professors, or the PhDs, which has a lot of research experience in the basic science and molecular biology.

Skip to 0 minutes and 50 seconds When we bring them together, that’s where they can collaborate and share their findings and resources. so, why is it so important to bring them together? because, it is simply because we connect bedside. again, which involves MDs, with the benchside, which involves PhDs. and then we will be have them to cooperate, to communicate, and then they can effectively materialize the biomedical findings into clinical applications, or vise versa, to tackle difficult clinical issues or questions with bench research. Now, this is considered as the most effective way to develop new drugs for different diseases. Now, why do we have to develop new drug? It is simply because cure for cancer has been one of the top goals in all fields of biomedical research.

Skip to 1 minute and 44 seconds Therefore, we bring professors and physicians with different expertise, and group them into different teams to go over details in each critical step In order to better demonstrate the idea of translational medicine, we will use “drug development”, from “identification a disease” to “clinical trial”, as example of collaborative effort from benchside to the bedside. as we mentioned earlier, translational medicine involves multi-disciplinary in a highly collaborative fashion. In this course, we will take students to places where exciting research is happening. we will show them how data can be collected, analyzed, and then translated into clinical application.

What topics will you cover?

  • The basic principles of translational medicine
  • How translational medicine has a lot of potential
  • Basic knowledge of medical-related research, from drug-development, animal research, to clinical trial
  • How academic scientific research and clinical scientific research can collaborate together

When would you like to start?

Start straight away and join a global classroom of learners. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.

  • Available now

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Describe the basic principle of translational medicine
  • Explore more topics related to translational medicine, including drug development, animal research, and clinical trials
  • Demonstrate how academic scientific research and clinical scientific research can collaborate together
  • Develop learning interests in the field of translational medicine

Who is the course for?

This course has been designed for senior undergraduates and postgraduates, or for those with a basic knowledge of biology or medical practice.

Who will you learn with?

Professor and Director, The PhD Program for Translational Medicine, Taipei Medical University.
Research interests: biomarker discovery, verifications, and clinical applications.

Who developed the course?

Taipei Medical University

Taipei Medical University (TMU) has been a leader in Taiwan’s healthcare system for over half a century due to its research, teaching excellence, internationalization and outstanding medical service.

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  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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