The word "innovation" is highly regarded. But what does "innovation" really mean in medical science?
Check out Shark Tank or something.
We have seen a bunch of stuff trying to sell themselves as innovative, but did not fly. We have seen "innovation" for the sake of novelty, but nobody picked it up. (Come to think of it, they still can be good niche products for the fans. But the word "innovation" implies broad and big coverage). Perhaps, the notion of "innovation" is not understood correctly, not defined properly, or is just overrated?
In a government grant section, we scientists need to explain "innovation" of our research project. That made me think what innovation really means.
If we look back in the history, innovations were Dynamite, T-ford car, Walkman (Sony), ipod (Apple), Penicillin, guns, smartphone, vaccination, etc.
mRNA vaccine is a major improvement in vaccination. You can debate if mRNA vaccine counts as a true "innovation".
Common to all "innovation" is that they all changed previous ways, status quo at the time, to a new way while solving problems with old ways. Innovations change our ways of doing things.
It sounds like talking from the result, I know. But in retrospect many innovations look like well-designed from the beginning, even if they actually were products of serendipity.
When I apply this notion of "innovation" to science, to be innovative, outcomes of our medical research should change current medical practice for the better in a big way.
I've worked in cancer chemoprevention research field for 15 years and have developed some familiarity in the field. There are many chemicals, dietary compounds, etc, that actually can reduce cancers in animals and likely in humans.
But the body of knowledge has not been fully translated to current medical practice. In fact, cancer prevention is rather poorly practiced. We are only beginning to test the approach on a small segment of patients with well-defined genetic cancer-predisposition (like Lynch syndrome with known genetic mutation that will increase colon cancer risk), or well-defined high risk factor (like pancreatitis for developing pancreatic cancer).
In these cases, applying cancer prevention measures by itself is innovation, compared with current practice of preemptive surgical removal of colon (which comes with likely QOL decrease) or of careful monitoring and doing nothing.
Anyhow, to define innovation, we need to know current medical practice. Then we need to apply our science and research to improve current practice for the better (hopefully in a big way).
Sure, "innovative" research tools like cancer genome sequencer have changed medical practice. The sequencer enabled oncology clinicians to identify gene mutations that are likely driving the cancer, so that the clinicians can pick a promising drug. Yet, clinicians changed their ways as users of the new tools.
Basic researchers need to think what will bring next innovation and what will be accepted/useful to the users.
True, many Nobel prize-level discoveries were ahead of time and had a long time collecting dust on the shelf before new users recognized the value and made them to innovation. Yet, we may need to keep putting forth the best designed outcomes.
