Guest Editorial: Knowledge transfer and the path of translational medicine

Translational medicine is at the forefront of academic health care. Although readers might recognize the term, few will be familiar with the principles of this emerging discipline. For many years, clinicians and scientists were concerned that discovery and innovation in cutting‐edge science and biomedicine were not being used to cure or treat patients. This “problem” fostered a new academic paradigm, the aims being to develop a pathway to bridge the preclinical to clinical care interface and, ultimately, to bring treatments and therapies to the real world of patients and of health‐care providers. There are three integrated “phases” of the “bench‐to‐bedside” translational medicine journey. A brief introduction to the discipline of translational medicine is presented.