EDITORIAL

translates basic laboratory discoveries into practical clinical applications. Nevertheless, the ideas tested in clinical practice often do not become efficient, requir-ing future refinement.1,2 Thus, clinical results can also return to the laboratory in order to help improve and refine a therapeutic strategy, so that translational re-search uses the bench to bedside approach in a bidi-rectional manner.(Figure 1) New generation treatments and surgi-cal procedures arise from researchcarried out at the academic level and in industrial laboratories. Thus, work performed in the laboratory can develop a therapy applied to clinical practice or a new surgical technique that can be ap-plied to humans. This bench to bedside scenario de-scribes the essence of translational research, i.e., it Translational investigation: its essence, opportunity and meri