Stem cell research growing at twice the world average

Research into the medical uses of stem cells is growing at a rate of 7% a year, or twice the world’s average growth in research of 2.9%, according to a new report.

In the recent field of induced pluripotent stem cells, awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine last year, the annual growth rate since 2008 is an astonishing 77%, the report states.

Released at the World Stem Cell Summit in San Diego in California, the report, provides a comprehensive analysis of the growth and development of the stem cell field and closely examines the research landscape.

To provide a broad view of the field, the report’s authors reviewed leading nations’ research output, citation impact and collaboration behaviour, as well as assessing international differences in focus and growth.

It notes that stem cell publications are 50% more cited than the world average for all related subject areas. About half of all stem cell papers use keywords related to ‘drug development’ or ‘regenerative medicine’, reflecting the field’s ongoing development and clinical promise.

Singapore, Italy, the United States, Japan and Israel have the highest level of activity in stem cell research while the US and China produce the highest volume of research papers.

“Stem cell research holds great potential to revolutionise healthcare,” the report says. “Investments in this field strive to deliver new treatments for many serious conditions for which few effective treatments currently exist.

“Some basic research findings are being translated into new treatments, and with the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells in 2006, the field has seen a step-change in biological understanding that will affect the way new drugs are identified and tested.”

Professor Norio Nakatsuji, founding director of the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Japan’s Kyoto University, said the challenge for the coming decade was to expand on multi-disciplinary and multi-sector collaboration aimed at large-scale production of high quality human pluripotent stem cells, and also, robust and reliable production of high quality differentiated cells.

“In order to provide adequate support to accelerate such research, a nation should take an evidence-based approach with an understanding of the global trend from a multitude of perspectives,” Nakatsuji said.

Professor Clare Blackburn from the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, and project coordinator of EuroStemCell, said the report gave a “bird’s eye view of the international stem cell field”.

“The report draws on advanced bibliometric techniques to identify national and international trends – where is stem cell research strongest, where is the sector developing fastest, are the results of individual funding initiatives translating into high impact publications? And so on,” Blackburn said.

“It has been extremely interesting to analyse these data; they contain a lot of provocative information. We hope readers will gain a new understanding of the shape of the field that will stimulate future policy discussions."