In this issue, Christoffel and associates1 described a new program of practice-based research involving community pediatricians and the Department of Pediatrics at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. In one sense, all clinical research is practice based and has a long and honorable history in medicine. What has changed is that the gap between those who conduct research and those in clinical practice has widened. As the pathophysiology of diseases is better understood, the frontier of biomedical science has moved from the whole patient to the organ system, the cell, and, now, the molecular level. It is as if each generation of researchers has snapped a progressively higher power lens under the microscope, with a deeper but more narrow focus.
Statistical controversies in clinical research: prognostic gene signatures are not (yet) useful in clinical practice
