In my view, translational errors become more important as more amino acids are added and the benefit to adding a new one becomes less because the existing diversity is larger already, so the potential gain in terms of protein function is less.
If I have one regret about my career in translational research, it's that I'm not 30 years younger".
My training was translational right from the start.
My understanding of the translational selection hypothesis is that the major selection factor in protein sequence evolution is the minimization of misfolding burden, which is a combination of the proportion of proteins that need to be refolded or removed and of the actual toxicity to the cell of some of the misfolded variants.
During my fellowship I found my calling in clinical immunology and translational oncology/bone marrow transplantation.
In retrospect, I can see how discussions of my role as a physician and my strong emphasis on the value of clinical and translational research to the environmental health sciences may have created a misperception that my sole interest is clinical disease.
The Harvard Medical School associate professor of anesthesiology completed his postdoc in a group headed by MIT's Robert Langer, where "the mindset of doing translational work was part of my training," he says.
I wanted to stay in the area of translational control, so I asked my supervisor to recommend researchers in the United States who were easygoing and human and who were doing good work.
Many of my colleagues are uneasy at the thought of translational research, not least because governments around the world are funnelling increasing amounts of money into such projects.
My view, we need to blur what I call translational scientific research with clinical practice because of exactly that, what it is today.
When she started graduate school, she expected to pursue basic research, but "what I've come to learn is that translational goals are very near and dear to my heart," she says.
