Research fields may wax and wane but one area seems to be
reaching its zenith: translational research. The field has become
both multidisciplinary as well as multidirectional. It can go just
as easily from bench to bedside as bedside to bench and back to
bedside once again.
Adding to its complexity, translational research is now starting
to be described as a multistep process—T1, T2, and T3—all of which
require input from physicians and scientists alike. The first
level, or T1, entails the movement of results from basic science
into the first human clinical trial. The transition from this first
human trial to a phase 3 trial marks T2, the second level of
translational research. The final level, T3, indicates the transfer
of results from the phase 3 trial to public health policy and
public health improvement.
With so many options, from setting up one’s own company to
internships and additional degrees, graduate and postdoctoral
students have the opportunity to customize their career path in
translational research.
Just as there are many kinds of translational research so are
there many ways to enter it. Academia and industry are meeting each
other halfway—some even literally by sharing buildings next to each
other—by coming up with programs to help train scientists who are
interested in pursuing a career in this field. These programs, much
like translational research, all cater to different kinds of
scientists that make up the field: physicians, biostatisticians,
postdocs, and graduate students.
“I think it’s here to stay. It does fulfill an important bridge
between the clinic and getting promising bench discoveries
transitioned into product development,” saysRichard
Seabrook, head of business development in the technology
transfer division of The Wellcome Trust, a UK-based nonprofit
organization that offers programs to assist the symbiosis between
academic investigators and biotech companies.
The Do-It-Yourself Route
While not the easiest route, one opportunity available to a
postdoc or graduate student interested in pursuing translational
research is to start one’s own company while still entrenched in
academia. Both sides are aware of what the other has to offer.
Academic institutions are starting to realize the potential
commercial value of scientific breakthroughs and companies
recognize the need for basic research in commercially important
innovation. To bolster this relationship, The Wellcome Trust offers
translational awards. This funding is given to academic scientists
or small companies to “de-risk” product development so that the
discovery will become attractive to a follow-on investor or
existing company.
Around several major British universities—for example,
Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Oxford—are science parks, a cluster of
labs where new small companies, sometimes spun out from
universities, have an opportunity to get themselves established.
These companies first set themselves up for several years in
incubator buildings, equipped with core laboratory equipment, until
they acquire sufficient data and funding to move to larger
facilities in the park.
For one such company, Seabrook recalls, The Wellcome Trust
funding stemmed from an idea thatMark Carltonhad while he
was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. Carlton
devised a way of rapidly developing experimental mouse models, a
staple of the translational field, to understand the function of
novel genes. With money from The Wellcome Trust and a soft start at
the university, he eventually created a company called Paradigm
Therapeutics in 1999. His company then moved to one of the science
parks around Cambridge and grew to include a subsidiary in
Singapore. Both companies were eventually sold to Takeda
Pharmaceuticals to form companies called Takeda-Cambridge and
Takeda-Singapore.
“I did it in the real world,” says Carlton. “My role was a mix
of scientific entrepreneurship together with commercial
endeavor.”
He credits both The Wellcome Trust and “business
angels”—business professionals who offer free advice to starting
business owners—for his head start.
“You can get a lot of things wrong at the early stages while
trying to get things right—there is a danger you can grow too
quickly and exhaust finances before it’s fully commercially ready,”
says Carlton. “If you’re an academic or postdoc trying to start
something from one’s own research, try to get some business
knowledge. Find someone you can trust as a mentor.”
The Paper/Diploma Route
If you’re not the entrepreneurial, risk-taking type, you can
pursue a more standard academic route. To get an extra edge, some
scientists are looking to get degrees in clinical and translational
research. Several US academic institutions offer Master’s and
doctoral programs specifically in this field.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is playing a positive
role in this area. As part of its roadmap to reengineer the
clinical research enterprise and promote translational research,
NIH has established the Clinical and Translational Science Awards
(CTSA) program, which funds 24 nationwide academic institutions to
set up programs to help train and offer career development in
translational research. By 2012, NIH plans to fund 60 awards, with
a total cost of about $500 million.
Barbara Alving, director of the National Center for
Research Resources (NCRR) at the NIH, the institute which helps
fund and sponsor the CTSA program, describes the program as not
just a collection of separate institutional awards, but even more
important, a “philosophy” of how clinical and translational science
should be conducted and of how the next generation of investigators
should be trained.
“It’s a way of recognizing that this is how we really need to
move forward based on where we are with scientific research. There
is a need to interact with biotech and pharma, a need to understand
intellectual property and patenting—all of this is really now part
of the academic career,” says Alving, who adds “many individuals
will have careers in academia, but they may have also spent some
time in industry. They may go back and forth. The CTSA program will
position them to be more broadly thinking so they can have a series
of possible careers.”
Not all CTSA programs bolster translational research in the same
way, points out NCRR Division Director of Clinical
ResearchAnthony Hayward. “We have 24 different solutions to
that problem right now,” he says, adding that all have the
requirement that they work together as a consortium. Both Hayward
and Alving hope that these institutions will spread their
translational research and knowledge to other national and
worldwide institutions not in the program.
Of the institutes in the CTSA program that offer degrees in
translational research, that of New York–based Columbia University
appears to be the most versatile.
“I like to call it intelligent crossover training,”
saysKarina Davidson, associate director of the Irving
Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Columbia’s CTSA
program. “These are individually tailored programs. It’s not every
scientist in training who requires this kind of knowledge or skills
or extra course work.”
For five predoctoral students a year, Columbia offers a one-year
certificate program. Postdoctoral students are given the
opportunity to obtain a Master’s degree in patient-oriented
research. Even at the junior faulty level there is a
multidisciplinary mentoring program. For the predoctoral and junior
faculty members, of whom 10 from each group are accepted each year,
they are given the opportunity to do a rotation at a local industry
laboratory to see what the intramural scientists are doing, how
deals are negotiated, and what sort of applied skills are needed to
work with industry.
The program takes a multidisciplinary approach through its
seminars covering numerous fields, says Davidson. “Each scientist
needs to be an expert and have depth of knowledge in their own
field, but the different disciplines will have to learn to work
together.”
“It’s really taking my research interests in a whole new
direction,” saysRussell McBride, a graduate student with a
cancer epidemiology background who is working toward his program
certificate. “While I might be struggling with a particular problem
in my research, it may be one that someone sitting right next to
me, working in another field, has already encountered and dealt
with. This could be something as mundane as help with writing a
grant proposal, or as critical as identifying a fatal
methodological flaw.”
This help from people outside one’s own field and the training
that the CTSA program offers will allow students “to become more
valuable, more knowledgeable, and more marketable because they will
know both sides of the problem,” says principal investigator of the
Columbia CTSA program,Henry Ginsberg.
McBride is optimistic about his prospects, whether it is in
academia or in industry. “I feel that I am very well situated for a
range of good postdoc opportunities.”
The Internship Route
For those who haven’t yet made up their minds about pursuing a
career in translational research, some biotech and pharmaceutical
companies sponsor translational research internships.
“There are alternate career options besides just doing a
postdoc,” saysHolly Soares, director of translational
medicine at Pfizer Research in Groton, Connecticut, who adds that
Pfizer is starting to partner with The Wellcome Trust to offer
these kinds of internships. “You can do internships that are
focused around trying to develop your experience in drug
development, something you might not get with a standard
postdoctoral experience.”
A more established internship program is available through
Genentech in South San Francisco, California.
In whatVishva Dixit, vice president of early discovery
research and director of Genentech’s postdoctoral program, calls an
“enlightened viewpoint on industry research,” the company does not
look for people with translational experience. Rather it feels that
this experience can be obtained over time.
“We don’t distinguish between basic fundamental research and
translational research,” he says. “We believe someone who is
capable of doing good basic research is capable of doing
pioneering, translational work.”
About 120 postdocs are currently in this competitive program,
which consists of an interview similar to a postdoc interviewing
for an assistant professorship and a seminar “chalk talk” that is
vetted by a committee. Once accepted, these postdocs work only on
basic research and are not allowed to work on product-related
research.
“We don’t want the postdoc program impacted by any commercial
concern,” Dixit explains, likening his program to a mini–Bell Lab.
“The postdocs at Genentech devote their time to doing cutting-edge,
basic research that is hopefully published in top-tier journals.
The expectation is that we are going to push forward the frontiers
of the fields that we are interested in.”
Within this program, about 10 percent go back to academia to
become assistant professors, another 10 percent get hired as
Genentech scientists, and the rest go on to work as scientists at
other corporations or pursue other endeavors such as business
development or law school, says Dixit.
Furthermore, for those who decide to pursue an academic career,
all published reagents, such as knock-out mice and cell lines, are
made freely available to take to their universities.
“It’s a very generous program,” says Dixit.
Second year postdocSamuel Williams, who works in Dixit’s
lab, agrees. “I’m not constrained in the ability to pursue projects
that are high risk or that would not be easy to get funded with
grants. I am able to attack them in a way that I wouldn’t be able
to do in academic labs.”
He also has acquired Genentech’s flexible mindset as to who can
do translational research. “My grand ambition is to produce work
that ends up finding its way to the clinic. Whether that happens
through an academic position or through an industrial position
doesn’t make much of a difference to me.”
What It Takes
So what exactly should a postdoc or graduate student do to get
some translational research experience? The advice, like the
options illustrated above, varies.
“They should follow their own basic interests, whether in
biochemistry, microbiology, or training as a physicist, but really
think about getting extra training through a degree-granting
program in clinical and translational research because this is
going to position them to be more forward thinking,” says NCRR’s
Alving.
Likewise, Wellcome Trust’s Seabrook encourages “good, solid
science training.” Additionally, he suggests working at a small
biotech or pharmaceutical company. “They will learn an awful lot
more science by being in a small company. They will have to use
their initiative and be more creative. Their decision-making skills
will be sharper,” he says.
Carlton concurs. “I think one should do a postdoc in academic
research before going to industry—certainly in the area of biology.
That way, one builds up an academic network that one shapes and
revises as one goes throughout one’s entire career.”
He says a researcher should then follow up this postdoc with a
one-year placement in a company, whether it’s by “sweat
equity”—working for free at an internship—or as a hired hand. “This
allows the company to experience the individual and the individual
gets a taste to see what it’s like in biotech or big pharma.”
He acknowledges, however, that whether to go directly to
industry after grad school or after an academic postdoc is a
personal decision. “Either route would work if you’re the right
type of person.”
So regardless of whether one is a graduate student, postdoctoral
fellow, or an academic professor, many roads can be taken to pursue
a career in translational research.
Jacqueline Ruttimann is a freelance writer living in
Chevy Chase, Maryland.
DOI: 10.1126/science.opms.r0800052
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