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

Andrew I Su¹ and John B Hogenesch²

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

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

author email corresponding author email

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


Published:	30 April 2007

Subject areas: Genome studies, Bioinformatics

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.