A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications on Pluripotent Stem Cell Research

Objective: human pluripotent stem cells are self-renewing cells with the ability to differentiateinto a variety of cells and are viewed to have great potential in the field ofregenerative medicine. research in pluripotent stem cells holds great promise for patientspecific therapy in various diseases. in this study, pluripotent stem cell articles publishedfrom 1991 to 2012 were screened and retrieved from science citation index expanded(sci-expanded).materials and methods: in this retrospective study, the publication trend, citation trendsfor top articles, distributions of journals and web of science categories were analyzed.five bibliometric indicators including total articles, independent articles, collaborative articles,first author articles, and corresponding author articles were applied to comparepublications between countries and institutions.results: the impact of top articles changed from year to year. top cited articles in previouspublication years were not the same as recent years. induced pluripotent stem cell(s) and embryonic stem cell (s) were the most used author keywords in pluripotent stemcell research. in addition, the winner of the nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 2012,prof. shinya yamanaka, published four of the top ten most frequently cited articles.conclusion: the comprehensive analysis of highly cited articles in the stem cell fieldcould identify milestones and important contributors, giving a historic perspective on scientificprogress.