How to conduct medical research: a clinical question-driven step-by-step medical research strategy based on the concept of translational medicine

Medical research has greatly promoted medical advancements and is the cornerstone of the continuous development of medicine. Translational medicine has become a core concept in medical research, yet a significant gap remains between this concept and its practical implementation and a clear, actionable framework to initiate translational research is lacking. To address this, we summarized and reviewed individual experience that explored a stepwise translational research approach, and proposed a clinical question-driven step-by-step medical research strategy based on the concept of translational medicine, which starts from clinical practice accompanied by the study of clinical practice guidelines to formulate a clinical question; proceeds through a literature review to identify potential solutions to the clinical question and derive a scientific question; then, preliminary clinical research is conducted to identify potential answers to the scientific question and propose a scientific hypothesis; proceeds through a detailed literature review to assess the research status of the proposed scientific hypothesis; finally, sequential clinical research and basic research are conducted to validate the proposed scientific hypothesis. This strategy might provide a clear, actionable framework to conduct translational research from scratch and translate this broad principle into a tangible research strategy.