Call for Papers Reporting Pediatric Translational Science Research.

The mission of JAMA Pediatrics is to provide state-of-the-art information to individuals and organizations working to advance the health and well-being of infants, children, and adolescents by publishing innovative, clinically relevant research on the health of children and adolescents. Original research reports typically published by JAMA Pediatrics have included randomized clinical trials, cohort and case-control studies, epidemiologic assessments, cross-sectional studies, cost-effectiveness and decision analyses, systemic reviews with meta-analysis, and studies assessing diagnostic or screening tests. JAMA Pediatrics is pleased to announce an expansion of the focus of Original Investigations considered for publication with a new call for manuscripts reporting original and innovative pediatric translational research with significant clinical relevance. The most traditional definition of translational research has focused on the bench-to-bedside translation of basic research findings into novel therapeutics (so-called T1 research). Subsequent definitions of translational biomedical research expanded to include research that seeks to translate findings from clinical trials into everyday clinical practice (T2 research), research translating new findings into community practice (T3 research), and translation of new scientific knowledge into disease prevention population or global health strategies (T4 research).1-3 Although these traditional and expanded definitions of translational research are all highly relevant, they are unidirectional and exclude an important branch of highly impactful full circle bedside to bench and back again mechanistic translational research that has led to an increasing number of biomedical breakthroughs throughout the 21st century.4-7 In such bedside-to-bench translational studies, clinician scientists identify a critical gap in our understanding of disease mechanisms and/or paucity of therapeutic options for a disease or unique disease endotype, leading to investigations using samples, cells, or tissues from carefully characterized patients, with or without parallel animal modeling, to identify a novel disease mechanism targetable with existing or novel therapeutic agents that are then taken back to the bedside. Although typically ignored in the traditional lexicon of translational research, this type of mechanistic translational work has led to remarkable breakthroughs over the past decade, especially in oncology and immunology.4,8-10 The development of a broad range of powerful tools including genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics that can be applied to samples and cells from carefully characterized patients, as well as the development of increasingly sophisticated primary human cell ex vivo and organoid model systems that can be interrogated with gene silencing or editing (eg, CRISPR-Cas9) technologies, is catalyzing an acceleration of this type of clinically relevant mechanistic translational research.11-18 With this call for papers, we are interested in the submission of reports of a broad range of pediatric translational original research. Examples of the types of translational research submissions of particular interest to JAMA Pediatrics include rigorous studies with valid analytic approaches and clinical relevance, such as research that translates a novel basic research observation into a first in humans clinical intervention; studies using patient-derived cells or tissues together with omics and/or gene editing approaches to identify a mechanism that is potentially responsive to an existing or novel therapeutic intervention; mechanistic studies embedded into carefully designed cohort studies that advance understanding of disease phenotypes and their evolution; and studies using patient cells or samples to phenotype and endotype heterogenous diseases and develop novel biomarkers in ways that advance precision medicine therapeutic approaches to disease management. The objectives of this new call by JAMA Pediatrics for translational research papers are to broaden the exposure of our readers to cutting edge clinically relevant mechanistic translational research and to broaden the potential audience for pediatric translational investigators to allow dissemination of their important research to an extensive clinically focused pediatric readership. Submitted manuscripts should explain the study methods and analyses, report their findings, and discuss the clinical implications in a way that would appeal to a broad range of scientists and clinicians. In addition, authors should define their study type, follow the relevant reporting guidelines, indicate ethical review and approval and informed consent if appropriate, and present their manuscripts in the traditional IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) format. For additional requirements, please see the journal’s Instructions for Authors for additional information on manuscript preparation and submission.19 All favorable research manuscripts will undergo peer review, including statistical review. All articles accepted for publication will be eligible to have an accompanying Editorial published by experts in the field and will be published quickly. In addition, all articles will be featured on the JAMA Pediatrics website, which has more than 8.7 million article views annually, and amplified through press releases and coverage by major international news media and social media. This call for papers is open now, and we encourage submissions starting in January 2023. Opinion