Translating Research from Bench to Bedside

PIERRE MAGISTRETTI Director of KAUST’s Smart Health Initiative

THERE IS A GAP BETWEEN CLINICAL CARE AND RESEARCH; WHAT’S MISSING IS TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH, WHERE SCIENTISTS INTERACT WITH CLINICIANS.

KAUST’s Smart Health Initiative fosters collaboration between researchers and clinicians

One of the most promising approaches to health care is precision medicine, a model predicated on the belief that effective treatment and disease prevention needs to be tailored to a sub-group of patients. In practice, however, this is difficult to achieve. The gap between advanced clinical research and actual care often prevents local biological knowledge and insights from reaching patients in the hospital. KAUST’s Smart Health Initiative seeks to bridge this gap by creating an ecosystem that fosters translational, or “bench to bedside”, research.

Launched in January 2020, the KAUST Smart Health Initiative aims to transform health care, improve human well-being, and drive the fundamental understanding of disease mechanisms and precision medicine in the Kingdom. Creating and supporting partnerships between researchers and medical practitioners is key to this. During its first phase, the Smart Health Initiative is supporting 18 partnerships between KAUST scientists and clinicians from medical centers across the Kingdom through $100,000 seed grants. Among the scheme’s partners are King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, King Saud Medical City and King Abdulaziz University.

These partnerships cover an array of medical research areas: from gene mutations and stem cells, to identifying bacteria present in donated organs before transplantation. They also encompass training and educational programs aimed at creating a pool of Saudi doctors with in-depth knowledge of translational science. Young clinicians from local hospitals are given access to KAUST’s research labs under the Clinician Scientist Fellow Program. A new MD/PhD program at KAUST in collaboration with local medical schools is also in the pilot phase. The first phase of the initiative has attracted KAUST faculty from across all three of the university’s academic divisions and several of its research centers, notably the Computational Bioscience Research Center. KAUST’s Core Labs also play an important role supporting the initiative, offering DNA sequencing, nano-fabrication, microscopic imaging, analytical capabilities, magnetic resonance spectroscopy and chemical analysis.

The transition from basic to applied research requires a unique and integrated environment of technologies and competencies, as well as a network of collaborators for innovation to eventually reach the clinic. Saudi Arabia has a well-developed health care sector with many areas of clinical excellence that are ideally suited to support collaboration with fundamental scientists at KAUST to address the mechanisms of diseases, develop diagnostic tools and ideally create novel therapeutic approaches.

The Smart Health Initiative, along with the planned BioHub to be hosted on the KAUST campus, will establish an enviable environment for collaboration with clinical centers that will help foster a biomedical ecosystem for the Kingdom.

KING FAISAL SPECIALIST HOSPITAL

“We at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center are very proud of our collaborative relationship with KAUST. The Smart Health Initiative is a great example of how this relationship is translated to reality with projects that are of great benefit to both institutions and the country at large.”

Dr. Ali Saeed Al Zahrani, CEO of King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center