What is Clinical Research?
Clinical research is the branch of healthcare science that involves the study of health and illness in patients. This form of research serves to translate the findings of basic science (performed in laboratories) into the clinical setting, with aims to provide new information and treatments for patients. Clinical trials, as well as disease epidemiology, pathophysiology, and outcomes, are all components included under the roof of clinical research.
Ishan’s Research Journey
My experiences with research first begun with a series of reviews involving biomarkers, specifically their diagnostic and prognostic capabilities in being able to predict incident events, such as acute myocardial infarction and stroke, as well as clinical outcomes following these incident events in the long run, such as mortality. From here, I then started to conduct database epidemiological studies to test the efficacy of these biomarkers in patient cohorts within Hong Kong. Conducting such research projects has developed my skills in not only in technical analysis, but also in recognizing patterns and correlations that are not immediately obvious. This, in turn, has allowed for me to gain a greater insight into the means through which the findings of basic science can be applied into the clinical setting.