Interdisciplinarity in Translational Medicine: A Bibliometric Case Study

摘要

Translational research (TR) is the process of bringing innovations from basic science into applied science, usually referring to the practice of medicine. It has been assumed that cross-disciplinary collaboration, or interdisciplinarity research (IDR), is essential to translation. Yet there is a gap in the literature regarding the interaction between interdisciplinarity and translation. If interdisciplinarity is highly correlated with translational research, this relationship would open up the possibility of using bibliometric techniques to help evaluate and target TR research.;This dissertation uses a bibliometric case study approach to explore the progression of three innovations through the published literature, in order to better understand the role of interdisciplinarity in translation and study the application of bibliometric methods to TR. The translational importance of the literature of these cases was determined by qualitative coding in collaboration with a physician consultant, while interdisciplinarity was operationalized by both a variety of bibliometric IDR indicators as well as through qualitative coding.;The results show that there is a weak correlation between interdisciplinary indicators and translational research, with a random forest prediction model able to correctly identify translational records with 69% accuracy using these indicators. The progression of records in the cases did not fit the theoretical linear model of translation, and better supports a balanced circular model. Multidisciplinary research is observed in some cases, but interdisciplinary work is rare. Interdisciplinary research did not appear to be a necessary or sufficient component of translation. The bibliometric diversity indicators of Integration and Diffusion are shown to be useful in identifying this distribution of information in practice. The use of subject categories to study translational research is found to be useful, but several caveats are noted, including the overlap of translational research areas within overly broad subjects.;It is hoped that the results from this study will enable TR policymakers to fund research with more confidence, promote the kinds of cross-disciplinary information flows that are most likely to benefit translation, and better evaluate the performance of such research using appropriate bibliometric methods. Ultimately, this understanding will improve TR and aid in its major goal of improving the health of society.