Basic science research in medicine.

The utility of research in basic sciences is not discernible to the casual observer, as most of it is undertaken to answer scientific questions rather than with the goal to cater to the needs of a particular discipline. The relevance of basic sciences to medicine is not immediate, as decades pass before the relevance of a particular research can be recognized. One recent example is Robert Edwards of the University of Cambridge, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and-Medicine for pioneering in vitro fertilization. His work began in the 1950's and throughout his research, " By a brilliant combination of basic and applied medical research, Edwards overcame one technical hurdle after another in his persistence to discover a method that would alleviate infertility " , stated the Karolinska Institute. Earlier in 2009, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared amongst Basic Scientists for work on telomeres that began in the 1970's just for reasons of curiosity from the side of the researchers. In trying to answer basic scientific questions , they discovered the enzyme telomerase and its role in determining the telomere size, which later come to be associated with aging, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. 'Basic science' may be any fundamental science that describes the most basic objects and forces; the relation between them; and the laws governing them; in such a way that all other phenomenon may be in principle derived from them following the logic of scientific reduction-ism. These include physics; chemistry; biology; mathematics; geology; and the list continues. Basic medical sciences in medicine constitutes anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacol-ogy, pathology and microbiology. These basic sciences are incorporated into medical education to provide an understanding of the scientific basic of disease, its diagnosis, and treatment. A knowledge and understanding of the scientific principles that govern human biology provides medical doctors not only with a rationale for the contemporary practice of medicine, but also with a framework to incorporate new knowledge into their practices in the future. 1 There is a gap in the understanding of how basic science knowledge actually influences medical practice. As a result, there is little or no appreciation of the years of work in basic sciences that have radically improved diagnosis, treatment, disease management and hospital care. This has given rise to the concept of " translational research " which is defined as " the process of applying ideas, insights and …