What is Translational Medicine?
Understanding the field that connects laboratory discovery, clinical care, and the communities medicine ultimately serves.
As defined by the European Society for Translational Medicine
Translational medicine is an interdisciplinary branch of the biomedical field supported by three main pillars: benchside, bedside, and community.
The goal of translational medicine is to combine disciplines, resources, expertise, and techniques within these pillars to promote enhancements in prevention, diagnosis, and therapies. It is a highly interdisciplinary field whose primary aim is to bring together assets of many kinds — across each pillar — to significantly improve the global healthcare system.
Benchside, Bedside & Community
EUSTM's model rests on three connected pillars. Knowledge flows in every direction between them — and the community completes the cycle.
Benchside
Fundamental laboratory research that generates the discoveries, mechanisms, and scientific knowledge on which new approaches are built.
Bedside
Clinical practice that applies research to patient care — and returns real-world observations to the laboratory to shape new questions.
Community
Patients, the public, and practitioners — the ultimate beneficiaries of translational medicine and a vital source of insight, feedback, and direction.
EUSTM places particular emphasis on the community as a third pillar — recognising that healthy populations, patients, and practitioners are not merely recipients of innovation, but active participants who shape and validate it.
From a One-Way Path to a Three-Pillar Model
The understanding of translational medicine has matured over time — from a single direction of travel to a connected, multidirectional system.
Benchside to Bedside
The earliest view of translational medicine was one-directional — translating laboratory discoveries into clinical applications for the patient. Valuable, but it overlooked the crucial feedback that clinical practice can return to research.
Benchside ↔ Bedside
The field then evolved into a two-way exchange, returning clinical findings to the laboratory to refine hypotheses and drive new discovery. Yet even this bridge left out an essential part of the healthcare cycle.
Benchside, Bedside & Community
In its 2014 position article, EUSTM formalised a three-pillar formulation placing community alongside benchside and bedside. Patients, the public, and practitioners enrich translational medicine with real-world insight, help shape research priorities, and are the ultimate measure of its success.
The Purpose of Translational Medicine
By connecting its three pillars, translational medicine works toward measurable improvements in health.
Better Prevention
Translating scientific insight into strategies that prevent disease before it takes hold.
Sharper Diagnosis
Bringing new tools and biomarkers from the laboratory into accurate, earlier diagnosis.
Effective Therapies
Accelerating the path from promising research to treatments that reach the patients who need them.
The Consensus Definition Article
The EUSTM position article setting out the consensus definition of translational medicine and its three-pillar model.