Matchmaking, metrics and money: a pathway to progress in translational research

In the 24 years since the founding of BioEssays, the level of translational research, as well as the expectations for its success, have burgeoned. Based on our analysis of current and projected US efforts to establish effective centers of translational research, our own institutional experience and discussions with academic research center leaders and institutional research executives, we have arrived at several critical conclusions about how best to foster disease-based research on the institutional, national and international level, what summary statistics may best serve as a measurement of successful practice, roughly how much more money will be required to fund the ongoing venture in the US and how to organize and promote this vision.