NIDDK Director's Update Spring 2011

Director's Note

At the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, we view medical science as a circle of discovery. We often call it “bench to bedside”—reflecting how findings from the lab can become the basis for clinical trials. But really, the discoveries don’t always end, and can sometimes begin, at the patient’s bedside.

As researchers, within and outside NIH, we take advantage of the unique collaborations formed between the best scientific minds and the generous patients who join clinical trials in a quest to better human health.

These collaborations, some supported by NIH Bench-to-Bedside awards, enable promising work to travel the circle of discovery, where laboratory findings can spark human trials and then, while trial results go out to the public and the larger research community, those results can also back to the lab researchers, who study the results to refine and form new hypotheses, taking the concept from bench to bedside and back. Read more