Thursday, June 12, 2008

Translational research was the focus of a feature I wrote for Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (you have to register, but it's free for now). New funding in the UK and the US is meant to build the infrastructure to support the human experimental work necessary to "translate" promising basic research into medical practice. That infrastructure is less about facilities and more about career structure that rewards teamwork and sharing the cost burdens of clinical research.

For Nature, I reported on a diversity in science program at the University of North Carolina that's unusual in two ways: it's been around for 30 years and it supports postdoctoral fellows rather than graduate students. The program's express intent is to groom postdocs for academic research positions, to help universities (especially those in North Carolina) diversify their faculties.