Scientific authorships and collaboration network analysis on Chagas disease: papers indexed in PubMed (1940-2009)

La enfermedad de Chagas es una enfermedad parasitaria tropical, endémica en muchos países y regiones de América, si bien, los movimientos de población han incrementado su distribución geográfica y se han constatado casos en muchos países del mundo. En este sentido, resulta fundamental promover iniciativas de investigación cooperativas y transnacionales, con el propósito de aunar la masa crítica de conocimiento generada en los diferentes países. Se estudian las publicaciones científicas sobre la enfermedad de Chagas recogidas en la base de datos Medline entre 1940 y 2009. Mediante indicadores bibliométricos se han analizado los patrones de colaboración y se ha efectuado un Análisis de Redes Sociales para identificar los principales grupos de investigación. Se han analizado 13.989 documentos publicados por 21.350 autores. La evolución de la colaboración ha experimentado un notable crecimiento, alcanzando un promedio de 6,2 autores por trabajo en el último quinquenio. Aplicando un umbral de colaboración de 5 o más trabajos firmados en coautoría, se han identificado 148 grupos de investigación conformados por 1.750 autores. La red de Chagas identificada conforma un 'mundo pequeño' con un elevado grado de agrupamiento, destacando el elevado número de investigadores brasileños.Chagas disease is a chronic, tropical, parasitic disease, endemic throughout Latin America. The large-scale migration of populations has increased the geographic distribution of the disease and cases have been observed in many other countries around the world. To strengthen the critical mass of knowledge generated in different countries, it is essential to promote cooperative and translational research initiatives. We analyzed authorship of scientific documents on Chagas disease indexed in the Medline database from 1940 to 2009. Bibliometrics was used to analyze the evolution of collaboration patterns. A Social Network Analysis was carried out to identify the main research groups in the area by applying clustering methods. We then analyzed 13,989 papers produced by 21,350 authors. Collaboration among authors dramatically increased over the study period, reaching an average of 6.2 authors per paper in the last five-year period. Applying a threshold of collaboration of five or more papers signed in co-authorship, we identified 148 consolidated research groups made up of 1,750 authors. The Chagas disease network identified constitutes a "small world," characterized by a high degree of clustering and a notably high number of Brazilian researchers

Scientific authorships and collaboration network analysis on Chagas disease: papers indexed in PubMed (1940-2009)

La enfermedad de Chagas es una enfermedad parasitaria tropical, endémica en muchos países y regiones de América, si bien, los movimientos de población han incrementado su distribución geográfica y se han constatado casos en muchos países del mundo. En este sentido, resulta fundamental promover iniciativas de investigación cooperativas y transnacionales, con el propósito de aunar la masa crítica de conocimiento generada en los diferentes países. Se estudian las publicaciones científicas sobre la enfermedad de Chagas recogidas en la base de datos Medline entre 1940 y 2009. Mediante indicadores bibliométricos se han analizado los patrones de colaboración y se ha efectuado un Análisis de Redes Sociales para identificar los principales grupos de investigación. Se han analizado 13.989 documentos publicados por 21.350 autores. La evolución de la colaboración ha experimentado un notable crecimiento, alcanzando un promedio de 6,2 autores por trabajo en el último quinquenio. Aplicando un umbral de colaboración de 5 o más trabajos firmados en coautoría, se han identificado 148 grupos de investigación conformados por 1.750 autores. La red de Chagas identificada conforma un 'mundo pequeño' con un elevado grado de agrupamiento, destacando el elevado número de investigadores brasileños.Chagas disease is a chronic, tropical, parasitic disease, endemic throughout Latin America. The large-scale migration of populations has increased the geographic distribution of the disease and cases have been observed in many other countries around the world. To strengthen the critical mass of knowledge generated in different countries, it is essential to promote cooperative and translational research initiatives. We analyzed authorship of scientific documents on Chagas disease indexed in the Medline database from 1940 to 2009. Bibliometrics was used to analyze the evolution of collaboration patterns. A Social Network Analysis was carried out to identify the main research groups in the area by applying clustering methods. We then analyzed 13,989 papers produced by 21,350 authors. Collaboration among authors dramatically increased over the study period, reaching an average of 6.2 authors per paper in the last five-year period. Applying a threshold of collaboration of five or more papers signed in co-authorship, we identified 148 consolidated research groups made up of 1,750 authors. The Chagas disease network identified constitutes a "small world," characterized by a high degree of clustering and a notably high number of Brazilian researchers

Scientific authorships and collaboration network analysis on Chagas disease: papers indexed in PubMed (1940-2009)

La enfermedad de Chagas es una enfermedad parasitaria tropical, endémica en muchos países y regiones de América, si bien, los movimientos de población han incrementado su distribución geográfica y se han constatado casos en muchos países del mundo. En este sentido, resulta fundamental promover iniciativas de investigación cooperativas y transnacionales, con el propósito de aunar la masa crítica de conocimiento generada en los diferentes países. Se estudian las publicaciones científicas sobre la enfermedad de Chagas recogidas en la base de datos Medline entre 1940 y 2009. Mediante indicadores bibliométricos se han analizado los patrones de colaboración y se ha efectuado un Análisis de Redes Sociales para identificar los principales grupos de investigación. Se han analizado 13.989 documentos publicados por 21.350 autores. La evolución de la colaboración ha experimentado un notable crecimiento, alcanzando un promedio de 6,2 autores por trabajo en el último quinquenio. Aplicando un umbral de colaboración de 5 o más trabajos firmados en coautoría, se han identificado 148 grupos de investigación conformados por 1.750 autores. La red de Chagas identificada conforma un 'mundo pequeño' con un elevado grado de agrupamiento, destacando el elevado número de investigadores brasileños.Chagas disease is a chronic, tropical, parasitic disease, endemic throughout Latin America. The large-scale migration of populations has increased the geographic distribution of the disease and cases have been observed in many other countries around the world. To strengthen the critical mass of knowledge generated in different countries, it is essential to promote cooperative and translational research initiatives. We analyzed authorship of scientific documents on Chagas disease indexed in the Medline database from 1940 to 2009. Bibliometrics was used to analyze the evolution of collaboration patterns. A Social Network Analysis was carried out to identify the main research groups in the area by applying clustering methods. We then analyzed 13,989 papers produced by 21,350 authors. Collaboration among authors dramatically increased over the study period, reaching an average of 6.2 authors per paper in the last five-year period. Applying a threshold of collaboration of five or more papers signed in co-authorship, we identified 148 consolidated research groups made up of 1,750 authors. The Chagas disease network identified constitutes a "small world," characterized by a high degree of clustering and a notably high number of Brazilian researchers

Scientific authorships and collaboration network analysis on Chagas disease: papers indexed in PubMed (1940-2009)

La enfermedad de Chagas es una enfermedad parasitaria tropical, endémica en muchos países y regiones de América, si bien, los movimientos de población han incrementado su distribución geográfica y se han constatado casos en muchos países del mundo. En este sentido, resulta fundamental promover iniciativas de investigación cooperativas y transnacionales, con el propósito de aunar la masa crítica de conocimiento generada en los diferentes países. Se estudian las publicaciones científicas sobre la enfermedad de Chagas recogidas en la base de datos Medline entre 1940 y 2009. Mediante indicadores bibliométricos se han analizado los patrones de colaboración y se ha efectuado un Análisis de Redes Sociales para identificar los principales grupos de investigación. Se han analizado 13.989 documentos publicados por 21.350 autores. La evolución de la colaboración ha experimentado un notable crecimiento, alcanzando un promedio de 6,2 autores por trabajo en el último quinquenio. Aplicando un umbral de colaboración de 5 o más trabajos firmados en coautoría, se han identificado 148 grupos de investigación conformados por 1.750 autores. La red de Chagas identificada conforma un 'mundo pequeño' con un elevado grado de agrupamiento, destacando el elevado número de investigadores brasileños.Chagas disease is a chronic, tropical, parasitic disease, endemic throughout Latin America. The large-scale migration of populations has increased the geographic distribution of the disease and cases have been observed in many other countries around the world. To strengthen the critical mass of knowledge generated in different countries, it is essential to promote cooperative and translational research initiatives. We analyzed authorship of scientific documents on Chagas disease indexed in the Medline database from 1940 to 2009. Bibliometrics was used to analyze the evolution of collaboration patterns. A Social Network Analysis was carried out to identify the main research groups in the area by applying clustering methods. We then analyzed 13,989 papers produced by 21,350 authors. Collaboration among authors dramatically increased over the study period, reaching an average of 6.2 authors per paper in the last five-year period. Applying a threshold of collaboration of five or more papers signed in co-authorship, we identified 148 consolidated research groups made up of 1,750 authors. The Chagas disease network identified constitutes a "small world," characterized by a high degree of clustering and a notably high number of Brazilian researchers

Disturbance of greedy publishing to academia

Questionable publications have been accused of "greedy" practices; however, their influence on academia has not been gauged. Here, we probe the impact of questionable publications through a systematic and comprehensive analysis with various participants from academia and compare the results with those of their unaccused counterparts using billions of citation records, including liaisons, e.g., journals and publishers, and prosumers, e.g., authors. The analysis reveals that questionable publications embellished their citation scores by attributing publisher-level self-citations to their journals while also controlling the journal-level self-citations to circumvent the evaluation of journal-indexing services. This approach makes it difficult to detect malpractice by conventional journal-level metrics. We propose journal-publisher-hybrid metric that help detect malpractice. We also demonstrate that the questionable publications had a weaker disruptiveness and influence than their counterparts. This indicates the negative effect of suspicious publishers in the academia. The findings provide a basis for actionable policy making against questionable publications.Comment: 16 pages of main text including 4 figures + 32 pages of supplementary information including 30 supplementary figure

A potent voltage-gated calcium channel inhibitor engineered from a nanobody targeted to auxiliary CaVβ subunits

Inhibiting high-voltage-activated calcium channels (HVACCs; CaV1/CaV2) is therapeutic for myriad cardiovascular and neurological diseases. For particular applications, genetically-encoded HVACC blockers may enable channel inhibition with greater tissue-specificity and versatility than is achievable with small molecules. Here, we engineered a genetically-encoded HVACC inhibitor by first isolating an immunized llama nanobody (nb.F3) that binds auxiliary HVACC CaVβ subunits. Nb.F3 by itself is functionally inert, providing a convenient vehicle to target active moieties to CaVβ-associated channels. Nb.F3 fused to the catalytic HECT domain of Nedd4L (CaV-aβlator), an E3 ubiquitin ligase, ablated currents from diverse HVACCs reconstituted in HEK293 cells, and from endogenous CaV1/CaV2 channels in mammalian cardiomyocytes, dorsal root ganglion neurons, and pancreatic β cells. In cardiomyocytes, CaV-aβlator redistributed CaV1.2 channels from dyads to Rab-7-positive late endosomes. This work introduces CaV-aβlator as a potent genetically-encoded HVACC inhibitor, and describes a general approach that can be broadly adapted to generate versatile modulators for macro-molecular membrane protein complexes