Experimental medicine

What is experimental medicine?
Experimental medicine is defined as an investigation undertaken in human beings to identify the cause of disease and to test the validity and importance of new discoveries or treatments.

What is the UKCRN's remit for experimental medicine?
UKCRN's remit is to facilitate links between experimental medicine and the Clinical Research Networks.

UKCRN aims to ensure that developments in basic science can feed through into clinically relevant research and that the results of clinical research can provide new insights into basic science.

The objective is to facilitate links between the investigators, commercial organisations, research participants, infrastructure and funding bodies that conduct experimental medicine and the work that constitutes the UKCRN portfolio of clinical research embracing clinical trials and other well designed studies.

Where does experimental medicine fit into the clinical research pathway?
Experimental medicine precedes and informs the development of clinical trials. Effective translation of results from experimental medicine studies into later phase clinical research is an important outcome of experimental medicine as is the generation of new hypotheses to be explored in the laboratory - 'from the bench to the bedside and back again'.

The importance of linking experimental medicine and the Clinical Research Networks
In addition to experimental medicine studies being conducted either prior to clinical trials or in response to findings from clinical research, the Topic Specific Clinical Research Networks, Primary Care Research Network and eventually the Comprehensive Clinical Research Network offer a valuable opportunity to embed experimental medicine studies into large phase III clinical trials on a scale not previously possible. The integration of so called 'nested' experimental medicine studies into the clinical research that constitutes the UKCRN portfolio will provide significant added value enhancing the benefit of such trials. UKCRN can help to identify and highlight these opportunities.