We all are aware that chemicals can be helpful or harmful to our health, but the systems we have for evaluating those effects are, like so many aspects of translational research, inefficient and often ineffective. Chemicals can be more than just life-saving (e.g., penicillin) or life-ending (e.g., cyanide)...

In recent years, basic scientists have made breathtaking advances in our understanding of the human body’s biology and chemistry. The human genome has been sequenced, stem cells understood and RNA interference discovered. All of these advances have been celebrated for holding enormous promise for improving human health...

In an increasingly multidisciplinary research world, innovative scientific advances require effective collaborations. As I often say, translation is a team sport. These partnerships — among academia, government, industry and nonprofits — enable and speed the development of promising interventions to prevent and treat disease...

A major NCATS mission is to develop new technologies and models that scientists in many different fields can use to advance translational research and ultimately improve health. Given the enormous opportunities and needs in translational science, we are particularly interested in “game-changing” technologies that could revolutionize the field...

Much has been written about scientific and operational problems that limit our ability to develop and deploy new and effective interventions to improve human health. Much less has been written about potential solutions to these problems — and that’s where NCATS comes in. We focus on developing these kinds of system-wide solutions...

My previous Director’s Messages have emphasized that translation is a team sport, describing my ongoing discussions with leaders from academia, government, industry and patient advocacy groups. The feedback from these conversations helps NCATS focus its priorities on the areas of greatest need and build the teams necessary to solve complex translational science problems that can prevent and delay the development of health-improving interventions...

In the five months since I took over as NCATS director, I have visited with a wide variety of constituents who have a stake in what we do — patients, grantees, companies, and scientists and physicians across NIH and elsewhere — and it has become clear to me that many, perhaps most, do not fully understand what “translational science” is. This knowledge gap leads to mystification at best, and misconception at worst, about what NCATS is doing and will do...