351 Personalized Medicine (2014) 11(3), 351–358 ISSN 1741-0541
The world wide web has revolutionized the conduct of global, cross-disciplinary
research. In the life sciences, interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving and
collaboration are becoming increasingly important in facilitating knowledge discovery
and integration. Web 2.0 technologies promise to have a profound impact – enabling
reproducibility, aiding in discovery, and accelerating and transforming medical and
healthcare research across the healthcare ecosystem. However, knowledge integration
and discovery require a consistent foundation upon which to operate. A foundation
should be capable of addressing some of the critical issues associated with how
research is conducted within the ecosystem today and how it should be conducted for
the future. This article will discuss a framework for enhancing collaborative knowledge
discovery across the medical and healthcare research ecosystem. A framework that
could serve as a foundation upon which ecosystem stakeholders can enhance the
way data, information and knowledge is created, shared and used to accelerate the
translation of knowledge from one area of the ecosystem to another.
Keywords: analytics•bigdata•collaborativeresearch•datamining•healthoutcomes
•knowledgediscovery•knowledgeintegration•medicalandhealthcareecosystem
•translationalresearch•web2.0
What exactly is translational research? For
many, the term refers to the ‘bench-to-
bedside’ enterprise of harnessing knowl-
edge from the basic sciences to produce new
drugs, diagnostics and treatment options
for patients. However, organizations within
the medical and healthcare ecosystem have
different views or perspectives regarding
the process of knowledge discovery and its
application. The science-centric view leads
to the translation of science research into
knowledge concerning the treatment and
possible prevention of disease. The knowl-
edge-centric view leads to the translation of
health research into knowledge concerning
treatments and their associated health out-
comes. Although all ecosystem organiza-
tions focus on the discovery and application
of new and relevant knowledge, the type of
knowledge and the way in which it is applied
differs [1]. With the science-centric view, the
challenge lies in translating knowledge con-
cerning disease mechanisms into new meth-
ods of diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
With the knowledge-centric view, the chal-
lenge lies in translating knowledge concern-
ing clinical and health outcomes into clini-
cal practice and evidence-based healthcare
decisions.
Knowledge discovery
& collaboration
Accelerating medical and health research
within the ecosystem involves the integra-
tion of knowledge and the leveraging of
data, analytics and processes to facilitate
collaboration and discovery. Knowledge
integration and discovery takes place at the
intersections of ecosystem organizational
research (Figure 1) and requires adherence to
standards and meaningful semantics. How-
ever, to leverage the benefits of integration
part of
Review
Translational Research 2.0: a framework for
accelerating collaborative discovery
Chris Asakiewicz
StevensInstituteOfTechnology,
CastlePointOnHudson,Hoboken,
NJ07030,USA
Tel.:+12012168012
christopher.asakiewicz@stevens.edu
10.2217/PME.14.15 © 2014 Future Medicine Ltd
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