EDITORIAL Open Access Introduction to the article collection ‘ Translation in healthcare: ethical, legal, and social implications’ Michael Morrison 1* , Donna Dickenson 1,2 and Sandra Soo-Jin Lee 3 Abstract New technologies are transforming and reconfiguring the boundaries between patients, research participants and consumers, between research and clinical practice, and between public and private domains. From personalised medicine to big data and social media, these platforms facilitate new kinds of interactions, challenge longstanding understandings of privacy and consent, and raise fundamental questions about how the translational patient pathway should be organised. This editorial introduces the cross-journal article collection "Translation in healthcare: ethical, legal, and social implications", briefly outlining the genesis of the collection in the 2015 Translation in healthcare conference in Oxford, UK and providing an introduction to the contemporary ethical challenges of translational research in biology and medicine accompanied by a summary of the papers included in this collection. Challenges and opportunities: introducing translation in healthcare In June 2015 some 130 delegates from 20 countries including the USA, Japan, Taiwan, Israel, and Canada, converged on Oxford for the Translation in Healthcare conference, hosted by the Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX) at the University of Oxford. The conference, subtitled ‘exploring the impact of emerging technologies’ , provided a forum for a range of voices from different national and disciplinary perspec- tives to discuss the ethical, legal and social challenges raised by novel healthcare technologies. Hosted in the spacious, contemporary environs of the recently-opened Andrew Wiles building, the event deployed a number of innovative features, including works by artist in residence Miranda Creswell and an interactive Écouter session for conference attendees (about which more below). The intention was to foster the kinds of lively, productive discussions that are otherwise often restricted to the intervals between scheduled presentations. The conference was also part of the international ELSI 2.0 collaboratory [1] with webcasts of key plenaries and a live Twitter feed connecting the debates with a global audience. Some of the papers in this special issue were presented in an early form at the Translation in Healthcare conference, while others germinated from the interdisciplinary ex- changes and discussions stimulated by the event. Each paper in this special issue addresses a particular technology and brings a particular disciplinary and methodological approach, but together they reveal the broad array of ethical issues emerging from the work of translation. In recent years the notion of ‘translation’ has been ever-present in discussions about healthcare technology and biomedical research, becoming something of a man- tra for policymakers and funders to rank alongside ‘innovation’ and, indeed, ‘ choice’. As with other concepts that have achieved near-ubiquity, ‘translation’ appears to mean different things to different people in different contexts [2, 3]. However, it is most commonly under- stood to refer to the application of novel scientific dis- coveries to improve health outcomes, benefit patients, produce new products and services, and promote eco- nomic growth and prosperity. This meaning of transla- tion is reflected in the oft-stated goal of helping innovative discoveries move ‘from bench to bedside’. The translational ideal encompasses both a hopeful * Correspondence: michael.morrison@dph.ox.ac.uk 1 Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX), Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Ewert House Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DD, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2016 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Morrison et al. BMC Medical Ethics (2016) 17:74 DOI 10.1186/s12910-016-0157-6