The next frontier in cardiovascular developmental biology-an integrated approach to adult disease?

摘要

For centuries, clinicians and basic scientists worked side by side in a common quest to identify, understand, and heal the sicknesses of the day. Since the mid-twentieth century, however, a wedge has been slowly driven between these disciplines. Clinicians, constrained by demands incumbent on newly survivable conditions and an ever increasing knowledge base, have become inhibited from participating in basic scientific inquiry, while basic scientists have increasingly pursued more focused studies that result in less clinical translation. These trends are disturbing because of the fundamental need each profession has for the other. One clear example of the interdependent nature of these disciplines is developmental biology.