Laird Center for Medical Research

Tour the Laird Center

Translational Research

Translational research focuses on reducing the amount of time to transform medical discoveries into practical applications, such as new diagnostic tools or novel therapies. This decreases the time it takes to move new research findings from “bench to bedside.” Collaboration between research scientists and clinicians helps fuel this process.

Clinical diagnostic testing facilities, research facilities and shared facilities comprise an entire floor of the new space within the Laird Center for Medical Research. In fields such as emerging infectious diseases and genomic medicine, clinicians and scientists are increasingly working on similar problems in collaboration and at times simultaneously. An important example is the discovery at Marshfield Clinic of the presence of monkeypox virus for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. Intense collaboration among physicians treating infected patients, veterinarians examining the suspected source, scientists working to identify the cause, and rapid notification and cooperation of state and federal public health officials helped to avert what could have been a serious public health threat.

Within the Translational Research area, research facilities are located adjacent to laboratory medicine facilities. In addition, Research Foundation and Division of Laboratory Medicine staffs work side-by-side in specific laboratories specializing in medically important genetic markers and in pathogens that are unknown or have been determined to be especially virulent.