Abstract: Translational medicine is a newconcept in China.It sets up a bridge between basic research and clinical work,and aims to transfer the basic study results to clinical practice as soon as possible.It is necessary for a surgeon to master the research idea of translational medicine in order to be expert in science and technique.Many unsolved clinical problems could be found in routine work,which is an advantage for translational medicine research. How to raise questions in routine clinical work and get these questions resolved in laboratory,and then apply the results to clinical work is a demand for surgeons nowadays. In this article, the research idea of translational medicine is introduced based on an example of the research on the relationship between rapamycin and hepatocellular carcinoma.