Stem cell research among most cited papers in biomedicine

-- Christopher King is editor of Thomson Reuters Science Watch, a Web site that tracks trends in basic research. The opinions expressed are his own. --

By Christopher King

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters.com) -- Even while controversy and legal obstacles have impeded research on embryonic stem cells in recent years, the basic concept --creating cells that can morph into any tissue type -- has been the subject of vigorous investigation. The Thomson Reuters site Science Watch www.sciencewatch.com tracks research by means of "citation analysis" -- identifying the scientific papers that are most frequently read and footnoted by other scientists. By this measure, stem cell research has been highly visible in recent years.

In 2006 and 2007, scientists achieved breakthroughs in creating so-called "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS cells) by reprogramming adult cells into a state comparable to that of an embryonic stem cell, without the need to use actual embryos.

As tracked by Science Watch, interest in iPS cells has been running high, as some of these reports published in the last two years (e.g., in the journals Cell (here(07)01471-7 ) and Science (here;318/5858/1917?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=318&firstpage=1917&resourcetype=HWCIT ) currently rank among the most-cited papers in biomedicine, indicating that their findings and techniques are being busily pursued and refined in many a lab.

A further measure of interest: in its annual roundup, Science Watch customarily looks back at the foregoing calendar year to see which scientific papers were most cited by December here . For 2008, a Nature paper on iPS cells came in at No. 2, having been cited more than 100 times in its first year of publicatihere .

Science Watch recently spoke to Rudolf Jaenisch, a researcher at the Whitehead Institute of MIT who's been in the forefront of iPS research here . Jaenisch noted that work on iPS cells, in circumventing the need for embryonic cells, had blunted much of the controversy engendered by stem-cell research. But he added that embryonic stem cells would still be necessary, for purposes of comparison and standardization, as iPS work is carried out.

Given the demonstrable level of scientific interest, the new guidelines on embryonic stem cells promise a torrent of publications -- and citations.