Scientometric portrait of Mike Thelwall

Mike Thelwall was honoured with the Derek John de Solla Price Award (2015) at his 50 years age and at 20 years of research publishing career. The first contribution of the author was in 2000 at the age of 35. His publications were analysed by year, growth of publication pattern, collaboration pattern, authorship pattern, channels of communications used and keywords etc. He had 297 publications during 2000-2015 in domains: Computer Science (237), Social Sciences (183), Decision Sciences (50), Mathematics (45), Engineering (11), Medicine(7), Agricultural and Biological Sciences (6), Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (6), Economics, Econometrics and Finance (3), Physics and Astronomy (3), Arts and Humanities (2), Business Management and Accounting (2), Psychology (1) and Multidisciplinary (1). Collaborative authorship pattern is found to be in the team size of 2-above 5. Fifty-seven are single authored papers, 136 two authored, 63 three authored, 21 four authored, 7 five authored and 13 above five authored. Two and Three authored papers constitute nearly 67 percent of the total authorship of his papers while single author papers are nearly 19 percent of the total authorship

“Topological Significance” Analysis of Gene Expression and Proteomic Profiles from Prostate Cancer Cells Reveals Key Mechanisms of Androgen Response

The problem of prostate cancer progression to androgen independence has been extensively studied. Several studies systematically analyzed gene expression profiles in the context of biological networks and pathways, uncovering novel aspects of prostate cancer. Despite significant research efforts, the mechanisms underlying tumor progression are poorly understood. We applied a novel approach to reconstruct system-wide molecular events following stimulation of LNCaP prostate cancer cells with synthetic androgen and to identify potential mechanisms of androgen-independent progression of prostate cancer.We have performed concurrent measurements of gene expression and protein levels following the treatment using microarrays and iTRAQ proteomics. Sets of up-regulated genes and proteins were analyzed using our novel concept of "topological significance". This method combines high-throughput molecular data with the global network of protein interactions to identify nodes which occupy significant network positions with respect to differentially expressed genes or proteins. Our analysis identified the network of growth factor regulation of cell cycle as the main response module for androgen treatment in LNCap cells. We show that the majority of signaling nodes in this network occupy significant positions with respect to the observed gene expression and proteomic profiles elicited by androgen stimulus. Our results further indicate that growth factor signaling probably represents a "second phase" response, not directly dependent on the initial androgen stimulus.We conclude that in prostate cancer cells the proliferative signals are likely to be transmitted from multiple growth factor receptors by a multitude of signaling pathways converging on several key regulators of cell proliferation such as c-Myc, Cyclin D and CREB1. Moreover, these pathways are not isolated but constitute an interconnected network module containing many alternative routes from inputs to outputs. If the whole network is involved, a precisely formulated combination therapy may be required to fight the tumor growth effectively

Facile preparation of a cellulose microfibers–exfoliated graphite composite: a robust sensor for determining dopamine in biological samples

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. A simple and robust dopamine (DA) sensor was developed using a cellulose microfibers (CMF)–exfoliated graphite composite-modified screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) for the first time. The graphite-CMF composite was prepared by sonication of pristine graphite in CMF solution and was characterized by high-resolution scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform, infrared, and Raman spectroscopy. The cyclic voltammetry results reveal that the graphite-CMF composite modified SPCE has superior electrocatalytic activity against oxidation of dopamine than SPCE modified with pristine graphite and CMF. The presence of large edge plane defects on exfoliated graphite and abundant oxygen functional groups of CMF enhance electrocatalytic activity and decrease potential to oxidize DA. Differential pulse voltammetry was used to quantify DA using the graphite-CMF composite-modified SPCE and demonstrated a linear response for DA detection in the range of 0.06–134.5 µM. The sensor shows a detection limit at 10 nM with an appropriate sensitivity and displays appropriate recovery of DA in human serum samples with good repeatability. Sensor selectivity is demonstrated in the presence of 50-fold concentrations of potentially active interfering compounds including ascorbic acid, uric acid, and dihydroxybenzene isomers

Neighbours of cancer-related proteins have key influence on pathogenesis and could increase the drug target space for anticancer therapies

Even targeted chemotherapies against solid cancers show a moderate success increasing the need to novel targeting strategies. To address this problem, we designed a systems-level approach investigating the neighbourhood of mutated or differentially expressed cancer-related proteins in four major solid cancers (colon, breast, liver and lung). Using signalling and protein–protein interaction network resources integrated with mutational and expression datasets, we analysed the properties of the direct and indirect interactors (first and second neighbours) of cancer-related proteins, not found previously related to the given cancer type. We found that first neighbours have at least as high degree, betweenness centrality and clustering coefficient as cancer-related proteins themselves, indicating a previously unknown central network position. We identified a complementary strategy for mutated and differentially expressed proteins, where the affect of differentially expressed proteins having smaller network centrality is compensated with high centrality first neighbours. These first neighbours can be considered as key, so far hidden, components in cancer rewiring, with similar importance as mutated proteins. These observations strikingly suggest targeting first neighbours as a novel strategy for disrupting cancer-specific networks. Remarkably, our survey revealed 223 marketed drugs already targeting first neighbour proteins but applied mostly outside oncology, providing a potential list for drug repurposing against solid cancers. For the very central first neighbours, whose direct targeting would cause several side effects, we suggest a cancer-mimicking strategy by targeting their interactors (second neighbours of cancer-related proteins, having a central protein affecting position, similarly to the cancer-related proteins). Hence, we propose to include first neighbours to network medicine based approaches for (but not limited to) anticancer therapies