It's Time to Reverse our Thinking: The Reverse Translation Research Paradigm

In contrast, reverse translation, also called bedside-tobenchtop research, begins with actual, real-life patient experiences in the clinic, or during a clinical trial, and works backward to uncover the mechanistic basis for these experiences and clinical observations. In the reverse translation paradigm, research becomes a seamless, continuous, cyclical process, in which each new patient observation stimulates new testable hypotheses that help refine and direct the next iteration of benchtop therapeutics research, which, in turn, leads to the next clinical trial and the next human experience (Figure 1).1 The beauty of reverse translation, unlike benchtop-tobedside research, is that there is no such thing as a failed clinical trial; only expected and unexpected therapeutic outcomes, and the inevitable variability in the observed human therapeutic response that needs further explanation and exploration. The reverse translation issue of Clinical and Translational Science embraces this broad view of reverse translation, which encompasses awide range of topics highly relevant to clinical pharmacology and patient-centered translational therapeutics research.