Basic Research: Laying the Groundwork

Basic research looks at the cellular and molecular levels of things in a laboratory-based setting. Scientists doing basic research try to understand how diseases develop, how to prevent those diseases and how to make people more aware of what causes the disease being studied.

Although scientists conducting basic research do not directly work with patients, at Cleveland Clinic, basic and clinical research are conducted side-by-side. As a result, discoveries translate more quickly into the clinical environment and patient benefits are achieved more rapidly.

	“Cleveland Clinic began as a research institution. Our discoveries today are the new therapies, the new drugs and new treatments for patients five, ten, fifteen years from now. Without the research that’s being done in these laboratories, there’d be no real advances.” -Paul DiCorleto, Ph.D. Chair, Lerner Research Institute