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Topic · Pharmacology

Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis

Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis is a research topic within Pharmacology. Science Explorer counts 39k research works in it since 1950. 9.8% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the exploration of natural products, particularly from microbial sources, as potential sources of new drugs. It covers various aspects such as genome sequencing, biosynthetic gene clusters, secondary metabolites, and their role in drug discovery. The cluster also emphasizes the significance of marine natural products and the potential of endophytic fungi in providing bioactive compounds for pharmaceutical applications.

  • Natural Products
  • Drug Discovery
  • Secondary Metabolites
  • Antibiotics
  • Microbial Metabolites
  • Genome Sequencing
  • Endophytic Fungi
  • Marine Natural Products
  • Nonribosomal Peptides
  • Polyketide Biosynthesis
Research works
39k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
3.8k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.8%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+7%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
46% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis

This ranks research output and citation impact. It says nothing about the quality of diagnosis, treatment or care.

Which countries lead Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (2.4k and 774 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 2.4k works
  2. 2 United States 774 works
  3. 3 India 662 works
  4. 4 Germany 328 works
  5. 5 Japan 321 works
  6. 6 South Korea 184 works
  7. 7 United Kingdom 155 works
  8. 8 Egypt 154 works
  9. 9 Indonesia 133 works
  10. 10 France 131 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 45.7%United States: 14.8%India: 12.6%Germany: 6.3%6 others listed: 20.6%46%largest
China2,393 · 45.7%United States774 · 14.8%India662 · 12.6%Germany328 · 6.3%6 others listed1,078 · 20.6%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis research?

By volume in 2022-now, Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes the most Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis research, followed by Russian Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 231 works
  2. 2 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 72 works
  3. 3 Chinese Academy of Agricultural SciencesChina 63 works
  4. 4 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 57 works
  5. 5 Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical CollegeChina 53 works
  6. 6 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 48 works
  7. 7 University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 45 works
  8. 8 Helmholtz Association of German Research CentresGermany 42 works
  9. 9 Shandong UniversityChina 40 works
  10. 10 Zhejiang UniversityChina 38 works

Who are the leading researchers in Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis include Zhong Lin Wang, Rob Knight and Peer Bork.

  1. 1 Zhong Lin Wang United States 491k citations
  2. 2 Rob Knight United States 468k citations
  3. 3 Peer Bork Germany 396k citations
  4. 4 Jun Wang China 340k citations
  5. 5 Richard A. Gibbs United States 292k citations
  6. 6 Chris Sander United States 276k citations
  7. 7 Wei Huang China 267k citations
  8. 8 Amirhossein Sahebkar Iran 258k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis?

The most cited paper in Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis is "Click Chemistry: Diverse Chemical Function from a Few Good Reactions" (Hartmuth Christian Kolb, M. G. Finn, Karl Barry Sharpless, 2001), with 13,223 citations. Next come "Natural Products as Sources of New Drugs over the Nearly Four Decades from 01/1981 to 09/2019" (7,078) and "LigPlot+: Multiple Ligand–Protein Interaction Diagrams for Drug Discovery" (6,702).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Click Chemistry: Diverse Chemical Function from a Few Good Reactions Hartmuth Christian Kolb, M. G. Finn, Karl Barry Sharpless · Angewandte Chemie International Edition Jun 2001 13,223
2 Natural Products as Sources of New Drugs over the Nearly Four Decades from 01/1981 to 09/2019 David J. Newman, Gordon M. L. Cragg · Journal of Natural Products Open access 12 Mar 2020 7,078
3 LigPlot+: Multiple Ligand–Protein Interaction Diagrams for Drug Discovery Roman A. Laskowski, Mark Basil Swindells · Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling 5 Oct 2011 6,702
4 Natural Products as Sources of New Drugs from 1981 to 2014 David J. Newman, Gordon M. L. Cragg · Journal of Natural Products Open access 7 Feb 2016 5,967
5 Natural Products as Sources of New Drugs over the Last 25 Years David J. Newman, Gordon M. L. Cragg · Journal of Natural Products 20 Feb 2007 5,531
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis research done?

The largest centres of Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Guangzhou (China), Shanghai (China) and Tokyo (Japan). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Overland Park, Braunschweig and Saarbrücken.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 407 works
  2. 2 GuangzhouChina 158 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 157 works
  4. 4 TokyoJapan 120 works
  5. 5 HangzhouChina 110 works
  6. 6 QingdaoChina 105 works
  7. 7 WuhanChina 102 works
  8. 8 NanjingChina 98 works
  9. 9 KunmingChina 79 works
  10. 10 SeoulSouth Korea 70 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Overland ParkUS · 23.0 works99×
  2. BraunschweigDE · 34.6 works13×
  3. SaarbrückenDE · 28.1 works12×
  4. JenaDE · 27.0 works9.3×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis than the world average.

See Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis on the map

Where is the best place to study Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis?

Among universities, judged by research, Jiangnan University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Zhejiang University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 16.24%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of Illino…Jiangnan UniversityZhejiang UniversityUniversity of Chines…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Jiangnan UniversityChina 72.624.1%7.3×26 +164.1%
2University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignUnited States 64.227.1%3.2×17 -6.9%
3Zhejiang UniversityChina 59.915.0%2.3×38 +20.0%
4University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 59.111.2%4.5×46 +5.5%
5Shandong UniversityChina 58.812.4%5.0×40 +14.1%
6King Saud UniversitySaudi Arabia 57.712.8%2.6×16 +29.6%
7ETH ZurichSwitzerland 57.416.4%3.7×16 +8.3%
8Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical CollegeChina 56.87.6%8.3×53 0.0%
9University of North Carolina at GreensboroUnited States 55.525.5%12.7×8 +118.0%
10Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 55.410.3%2.7×48 +2.7%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis, country by country

Is Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 7% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.027% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis0.028% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis9.8% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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