In this paper we introduce a novel design for a translational medical research ecosystem. Translational medical research is an emerging field of work with the aim to bridge the gap between basic medical science research and clinical research/patient care. We analyze the key challenges for digital ecosystems for translational research, based on real world scenarios posed by the Lab for Translational Research at the Harvard Medical School and the Genomics Research Centre of the Griffith

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... , and show how traditional IT approaches fail to fulfill these challenges. We then introduce our novel translational research ecosystem. Several key contributions are made: A novel approach to managing ad-hoc research ecosystems is introduced; a new security model for translational research is developed which allows each participating cite to retain control over it's data and define it's own policies to ensure legal and ethical compliance; a novel interactive access control framework allows users to easily share data while adhering to their organization's policies.