19
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Supporting novel biomedical research via multilayer collaboration networks

      Preprint

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          The value of research containing novel combinations of molecules can be seen in many innovative and award-winning research programs. Despite calls to use innovative approaches to address common diseases, an increasing majority of research funding goes toward "safe" incremental research. Counteracting this trend by nurturing novel and potentially transformative scientific research is challenging, it must be supported in competition with established research programs. Therefore, we propose a tool that helps to resolve the tension between safe but fundable research vs. high-risk but potentially transformational research. It does this by identifying hidden overlapping interest around novel molecular research topics. Specifically, it identifies paths of molecular interactions that connect research topics and hypotheses that would not typically be associated, as the basis for scientific collaboration. Because these collaborations are related to the scientists' present trajectory, they are low risk and can be initiated rapidly. Unlike most incremental steps, these collaborations have the potential for leaps in understanding, as they reposition research for novel disease applications. We demonstrate the use of this tool to identify scientists who could contribute to understanding the cellular role of genes with novel associations with Alzheimer's disease, which have not been thoroughly characterized, in part due to the funding emphasis on established research.

          Related collections

          Most cited references27

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Coauthorship networks and patterns of scientific collaboration.

          M. Newman (2004)
          By using data from three bibliographic databases in biology, physics, and mathematics, respectively, networks are constructed in which the nodes are scientists, and two scientists are connected if they have coauthored a paper. We use these networks to answer a broad variety of questions about collaboration patterns, such as the numbers of papers authors write, how many people they write them with, what the typical distance between scientists is through the network, and how patterns of collaboration vary between subjects and over time. We also summarize a number of recent results by other authors on coauthorship patterns.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Team assembly mechanisms determine collaboration network structure and team performance.

            Agents in creative enterprises are embedded in networks that inspire, support, and evaluate their work. Here, we investigate how the mechanisms by which creative teams self-assemble determine the structure of these collaboration networks. We propose a model for the self-assembly of creative teams that has its basis in three parameters: team size, the fraction of newcomers in new productions, and the tendency of incumbents to repeat previous collaborations. The model suggests that the emergence of a large connected community of practitioners can be described as a phase transition. We find that team assembly mechanisms determine both the structure of the collaboration network and team performance for teams derived from both artistic and scientific fields.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found
              Is Open Access

              The structure and dynamics of multilayer networks

              , , (2014)
              In the past years, network theory has successfully characterized the interaction among the constituents of a variety of complex systems, ranging from biological to technological, and social systems. However, up until recently, attention was almost exclusively given to networks in which all components were treated on equivalent footing, while neglecting all the extra information about the temporal- or context-related properties of the interactions under study. Only in the last years, taking advantage of the enhanced resolution in real data sets, network scientists have directed their interest to the multiplex character of real-world systems, and explicitly considered the time-varying and multilayer nature of networks. We offer here a comprehensive review on both structural and dynamical organization of graphs made of diverse relationships (layers) between its constituents, and cover several relevant issues, from a full redefinition of the basic structural measures, to understanding how the multilayer nature of the network affects processes and dynamics.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                2016-10-28
                Article
                1610.09253
                c49da8c3-520a-41ef-af3b-20b7c275026e

                http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

                History
                Custom metadata
                cs.SI q-bio.BM q-bio.MN q-bio.QM

                Social & Information networks,Quantitative & Systems biology,Molecular biology

                Comments

                Comment on this article