Correspondence

Power-law-like distributions in biomedical publications and research funding

Andrew I Su1 and John B Hogenesch2*

Author Affiliations

1 Genomic Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, 10675 John Jay Hopkins Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA.

2 Department of Pharmacology, Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 421 Curie Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

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Genome Biology 2007, 8:404 doi:10.1186/gb-2007-8-4-404

Published: 30 April 2007

Abstract

Gene annotation, as measured by links to the biomedical literature and funded grants, is governed by a power law, indicating that researchers favor the extensive study of relatively few genes. This emphasizes the need for data-driven science to accomplish genome-wide gene annotation.