However, funding for basic research is getting more difficult to procure, discouraging young scientists from entering the field (Rohn, 2011). Also, given that academic success is measured largely by publications and scholarly awards, there is no easy path nor career incentives for researchers to accomplish translation. Furthermore, BTK inhibitor in vitro translational research by its nature entails

a high degree of risk (Figure 2) and requires milestone-based go/no-go decisions that can mean relinquishing exciting ideas, which is particularly difficult for basic researchers for whom ideas are often career identifiers. At the same time, lack of institutional funding for intellectual property (IP) investment and large lag times to generate IP, which delays publications, take a toll. When IP is generated, tech transfer is often inefficient, leaving IP to languish. Because of these inefficiencies, the number of products generated from promising basic research is disappointingly low, and researchers and academic institutions are not sharing in the CP-690550 supplier benefits of productive translation. Bold solutions are needed—for example, integrating interested researchers into translational teams so that they would spend a percentage of their time on a designated translational project, with commensurate (for time spent) funding for “blue

sky” research. This team-based DNA ligase model could work for government-led funding or within the context of private/public partnerships. Indeed, as pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms divest of in-house R&D arms, they are forming strategic academic partnerships to both capture IP and support research, and there is a growing list of companies in the stem cell space with CNS interests. Progress in such team approaches are exemplified by the NIH

U-funding mechanisms and the CIRM disease-team approach (Table 4). Stem cell research is one of the most rapidly developing areas of science and medicine. The explosive rise in discoveries and technologies that we see in the basic research labs has yet to enter the pipeline, and there is an enormous gap between what we can do at the bench and what we see in the current trials. While this is a constant source of frustration, the fact is that it means there is a lot to look forward to, as long as we can make the process of translation more efficient and affordable. Currently, the production of specific cell types from stem cells is conducted differently in individual labs, and in some cases protocols—typically complex, multistep, and lab-idiosyncratic—can be difficult to repeat. Furthermore, cell output is measured with relatively rudimentary characterization, raising concerns that cells produced for clinical trials might not be bona fide, or stable, or as pure as reported.