The readers of Nature should be an optimistic bunch. Every week we publish encouraging dispatches from the continuing war against disease and ill health. Genetic pathways are unravelled, promising drug targets are identified and sickly animal models are brought back to rude health. Yet the number of human diseases that can be efficiently treated remains low - a concerning impotency given the looming health burden of the developed world's ageing population. The uncomfortable truth is that scientists and clinicians have been unable to convert basic biology advances into therapies or resolve why these conversion attempts so often don't succeed. Together, these failures are hampering clinical research at a time when it should be expanding.
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