For Immediate Release
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AAAS/Science to Launch New Journal, Science Translational Medicine,
“Integrating Science and Medicine”
 
Elias Zerhouni, M.D., Former Director of the National Institutes of
Health,
Named Chief Scientific Advisor
 
The journal Science, published by the nonprofit American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), today announced plans to launch a
new journal devoted to research in translational medicine, which uses
insights from basic biology to improve medical care. The journal,
Science Translational Medicine, will launch in fall, 2009. (See
www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org.)
 
Elias Zerhouni, M.D., Senior Fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation’s Global Health Program and former Director of the U.S.
National Institutes of Health, has accepted the position of Chief
Scientific Advisor for Science Translational Medicine.
 
Together with the journal’s Advisory Board of clinician scientists and
other experts, and Editor Katrina L. Kelner, Dr. Zerhouni will set the
strategic direction of the journal and work with staff to attract and
publish research that represents both excellent science and significant
advances for human health.
 
“We need to find novel and more effective ways to better understand and
develop, for patients, the extraordinary advances we have made in the
past few years. This is why translational medicine has to become a more
rigorous and, in my view, a redefined new discipline of biomedical
science, with a vibrant and focused community dedicated to basic and
applied investigations of the highest scientific quality, and without
artificial barriers between its constituent disciplines,” Dr. Zerhouni
said.
 
“We should never forget that the public supports our research not just
for its own sake but for its promise to bring new and more effective
approaches to health across the world. I am pleased by the decision of
AAAS to launch this journal at this time and honored to serve as its
inaugural chief scientific advisor.”
 
What is Translational Medicine?
 
Often described as an effort to carry scientific knowledge “from bench
to bedside,” translational medicine builds on basic research advances –
studies of biological processes using cell cultures, for example, or
animal models – and uses them to develop new therapies or medical
procedures.
 
Translational medicine is becoming ever-more interdisciplinary. For
example, researchers need new computational approaches to deal with the
large amounts of data pouring in from genomics and other fields, and as
new advances in physics and materials science offer new approaches to
study or diagnose medical conditions.
 
Science Translational Medicine is being launched to help researchers
more efficiently access and apply new findings from many different
fields, explained Bruce Alberts, Science’s Editor-in-Chief.
Specifically, the journal will serve researchers and management in
academia, government, and the biotechnology and pharmaceutical
industries, physician scientists, regulators, policy-makers, investors,
business developers, and funding agencies.
 
“The new journal should help scientists and engineers work toward
bigger-picture goals for improving patient care, by allowing them to
better assimilate information that currently is coming at them from
multiple sources,” Alberts said. “Too often, information with the
potential to improve human quality-of-life is available only through
silo-like channels. For example, cardiologists who only attend
specialized meetings and read the basic cardiology literature, but not
the physics or computer science literature, might miss an important
breakthrough that could advance their own research. Science
Translational Medicine will help keep researchers informed about
advances across all disciplines.”
 
“Science Translational Medicine will encourage the flow of information
from the lab to the clinic – but also from the clinic back to the lab.
We believe that continuous feedback and communication among the diverse
players in this system are essential for success,” said Editor Katrina
Kelner.
 
Specific Examples of Translational Research
 Harry Dietz and his colleagues at JohnsHopkinsUniversityfound that
losartan, a drug already approved in the United Statesfor use against
high blood pressure, can prevent the aortic aneurisms found in mice
engineered to have Marfan syndrome, a genetic disease that affects the
body’s connective tissue. Losartan has now been tested as a therapy in a
group of children with this syndrome and found to inhibit the
development of these potentially deadly abnormalities in the aorta.

 Using sophisticated image processing algorithms, Anant Madabhushi and
colleagues at RutgersUniversitycan analyze the texture in
high-resolution MRI medical images to detect and locate early stage
prostate tumors. This application of computational tools to medical
imaging yields a more sensitive and reliable technique for clinical
application than existing approaches.

 After several decades of unsuccessful efforts to find a vaccine for
meningitis B using conventional methods, a research team led by Rino
Rappuoli of IRIS, Chiron S.p.A. in Siena, Italyidentified a vaccine
candidate using a translational approach called reverse vaccinology,
which involved analyzing the meningococcal genome sequence. Novartis is
now testing this candidate in clinical trials.

 To delay the onset of blindness, many patients with glaucoma must
administer eye drops multiple times during the day, a demanding routine
that can prevent effective control of the disease. Erin Lavik at
YaleUniversityhas developed microspheres containing the glaucoma drug
timolol maleate, which can be injected into one spot in the eye, where
the microspheres secrete controlled amounts of timolol for over a month.
This improvement in the way that glaucoma patients receive their
medication could lead to more consistent levels of the drug and better
outcomes for the patient.

 Gold nanoparticles or "nanoshells" developed by James Tunnel's group
at the Universityof Texasin Austincan be localized to cancer cells,
allowing detection by fluorescence spectroscopy even when the tumors are
quite small. These same particles can then be activated with strong
light to potentially destroy the tumor. This approach combines optical
imaging, spectroscopy and nanotechnology for early cancer diagnosis.

 
Inside the Journal
 
Science Translational Medicine will publishoriginal, peer-reviewed,
science-based research, including small clinical trials and other
studies of human biology, as well research on animal models of human
disease. “Perspective” articles and Reviews will discuss new findings
from both a basic science and a clinical point of view. The journal also
will feature and synthesize informed commentary on policy, funding,
regulatory issues, and more.
 
The scope of content in Science Translational Medicine will encompass
advances related to cancer; cardiovascular disease; metabolism, diabetes
and obesity; neuroscience, neurology, and psychiatry; immunology and
vaccines; infectious diseases; policy; behavior; bioengineering;
physics; chemical genomics and drug discovery; imaging; applied physical
sciences; medical nanotechnology; drug delivery; biomarkers; gene
therapy and regenerative medicine; toxicology and pharmacokinetics; data
mining; cell culture; animal and human studies; medical informatics;
other interdisciplinary approaches to medicine.
 
Science Translational Medicine will be published weekly online, every
Wednesday, and a compilation of selected articles will be offered in a
print edition, published monthly.
 
“Science Translational Medicine will join Science’s other sister
journal, Science Signaling, in providing a unique forum for researchers
from many different disciplines to connect and collaborate in new ways
that benefit human health,” said Alan I. Leshner, Chief Executive
Officer of AAAS and Executive Publisher of the journal Science.
 
Science Translational Medicine’s Leadership
 
In addition to Chief Scientific Advisor Elias Zerhouni and Science
Editor-in-Chief Bruce Alberts, Science Translational Medicine’s
leadership includes Editor Katrina Kelner and Science Executive Editor
Monica Bradford.
 
Science Translational Medicine’s Advisory Board
 
Kenneth R. Chien, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General
Hospital
Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard Medical School
 
Harry C. Dietz, M.D.
Professor, Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins
University, School of Medicine
 
Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D.
Director, Center for Genome Sciences, Washington University in St.
Louis, School of Medicine
 
Philip Greenland, M.D.
Senior Associate Dean, Clinical and Translational Research, Feinberg
School of Medicine
Director, Northwestern University, Clinical and Translational Sciences
Institute
Former Editor, Archives of Internal Medicine
 
Joseph B. Martin, M.D.
Professor, Neurobiology and Co-Chair, Governance, NeuroDiscovery
Center, Harvard Medical School
Former Dean, Harvard Medical School
 
Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D.
Chief and Principal Investigator, Nabel Lab, Cardiovascular Branch,
Vascular Biology Section
Director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National
Institutes of Health
 
***
 
Note for Working Journalists: If you are not yet registered with the
news service EurekAlert! to access advance, embargoed information from
Science, which will include stories from Science Translational Medicine,
please register online at www.eurekalert.org (
http://www.eurekalert.org/ ). Press registration is free to all
reporters. Like Science and Science Signaling, the weekly Science
Translational Medicine press package will be embargoed and available to
registered reporters via a password-protected Web page within
EurekAlert!.
 
The editors are now accepting research submissions for review and
possible publication in Science Translational Medicine. The call for
papers and submission guidelines are at
http://sciencemag.org/marketing/stm/papers.dt1.
 
Institutional sitewide access is available. Trials will begin in the
fourth quarter of 2009.
 
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the
world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the
journalScience (www.sciencemag.org ( http://www.sciencemag.org/ )),
Science Signaling (www.sciencesignaling.org (
http://www.sciencesignaling.org/ )), and Science Translational
Medicine (www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org (
http://www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org/ )). AAAS was founded in
1848, and serves some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science,
serving 10 million individuals.Science has the largest paid circulation
of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an
estimated total readership of one million. The nonprofit AAAS
(www.aaas.org ( http://www.aaas.org/ )) is open to all and fulfills
its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives
in science policy; international programs; science education; and more.
For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org (
http://www.eurekalert.org/ ), the premier science-news Web site, a
service of AAAS.
 
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