Medical research

Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of health.^[1]

Medical research encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called bench science or bench research),^[2] – involving fundamental scientific principles that may apply to a preclinical understanding – to clinical research, which involves studies of people who may be subjects in clinical trials. Within this spectrum is applied research, or translational research, conducted to expand knowledge in the field of medicine.

Both clinical and preclinical research phases exist in the pharmaceutical industry's drug development pipelines, where the clinical phase is denoted by the term clinical trial. However, only part of the clinical or preclinical research is oriented towards a specific pharmaceutical purpose. The need for fundamental and mechanism-based understanding, diagnostics, medical devices, and non-pharmaceutical therapies means that pharmaceutical research is only a small part of medical research.

Most of the research in the field is pursued by biomedical scientists, but significant contributions are made by other type of biologists. Medical research on humans has to strictly follow the medical ethics sanctioned in the Declaration of Helsinki and the institutional review board where the research is conducted. In all cases, research ethics are expected.