Such systems will allow precise recording or modulation of physiological activity, for advancing basic scientific discovery and for restoring or augmenting biological functions for clinical applications.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explains that NCATs will "offer innovative approaches to the development pipeline, provide novel approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics development, stimulate new avenues for basic scientific discovery, and complement existing NIH and private sector research".
FasterCures has spent a lot of time focusing on the "first translation gap," between basic scientific discoveries and research in humans subjects; somewhat outside our scope has been "T2," the gap between approval of a treatment and its adoption into widespread use to improve patient outcomes, which can take as long as the R&D process.
Unfortunately, the path from basic scientific discovery to methods and technologies that can be applied in a clinical setting is lengthy and complicated.
The MRL will serve interdisciplinary groups of faculty researchers, spanning the spectrum of basic scientific discovery through engineering applications and entrepreneurship to ensure that research breakthroughs have an impact on society.
(And where defense is concerned, basic scientific discovery also has a more direct role: it leads to the applied science that eventually provides advances in defense hardware).
And if the history of the internet and GPS is a guide, the real winners in an economic era dependent on AI technologies will be the countries or regions that align private and public sectors to allocate scarce AI expertise to augment basic scientific discovery (as well as commercial applications).
The reason is the following: What we need is strong support for basic scientific discovery research, which is what's going to lead to the major advances.
In T1, epidemiology explores the role of a basic scientific discovery (e.g., a disease risk factor or biomarker) in developing a "candidate application" for use in practice (e.g., a test used to guide interventions).
The most current translation model in the literature expounds the 4 T's [ 8]: basic scientific discovery (basic knowledge) to potential clinical application (theoretical knowledge) (T1), to evidence-based guidelines (efficacy knowledge) (T2), to clinical care or intervention (applied knowledge) (T3), and to the health of a community or population (public health knowledge) (T4).
"I'm confident we will push boundaries in basic scientific discoveries, nanomaterials, catalysis, and energy systems that go beyond just new innovation a few years down the road," adds Shao-Horn.
