Basic medical research[edit]

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, home to eight scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology
or Medicine, is an internationally renowned basic medical research institution.

Example areas in basic medical research include cellular and molecular biology, medical genetics,
immunology, neuroscience, and psychology. Researchers, mainly in universities or government-
funded research institutes, aim to establish an understanding of the cellular, molecular and
physiological mechanisms of human health and disease.

Preclinical research[edit]
Preclinical research covers understanding of mechanisms that may lead to clinical research with
people. Typically, the work requires no ethical approval, is supervised by scientists rather
than physicians, and is carried out in a university or company, rather than a hospital.

Clinical research[edit]
Clinical research is carried out with people as the experimental subjects. It is generally supervised
by physicians and conducted by nurses in a medical setting, such as a hospital or research clinic,
and requires ethical approval.