Twenty-five years ago, the first case of AIDS in the United States
was reported. According to the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Disease, there have been more than 900,000 cases of AIDS
reported in the US since 1981, and there may be as many as 950,000
people in the US with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The Centers for
Disease Control’s statistics estimate that approximately 40,000
people contract HIV annually.
This month, Special Topics examines the literature in HIV/AIDS
research over the past decade and over the past two years. The
resulting database contains over 50,000 papers as identified by the
search strategy outlined below. We present the top 20 papers from the
past decade and the past two years as well, the top 20 authors,
institutions, journals, and nations performing HIV/AIDS research.
Judging by the number of papers in the top 20 list, the big draw in
HIV/AIDS research over the past decade has been HIV-1 entry cofactors
and co-receptors. The biggest of these discoveries appears to be that
of CCR5, with no less than seven papers on this chemokine receptor on
our list. Chemokine receptors CCR3, CCR2b, and SDF-1 are also included
on this list. Other topics making the top 20 list include HIV-1
dynamics in vivo, envelope glycoproteins, CD4(+) cell
responses, morbidity and mortality in AIDS patients, and
antiretroviral drug trials, such as indinavir, zidovudine, and
lamivudine.
Two substantial areas of HIV/AIDS research stand out on the
two-year papers list: coinfection of HIV and hepatitis C, and various
aspects of the antiretroviral factor APOBEC3F. Other topics covered on
the two-year list include treatment guidelines, new antiretroviral
drug trials, coinfection with GB virus C, TRIM5-alpha’s potential
role in restricting HIV-1 infection in monkeys, T-cell levels, RNA
interference, using nucleic acid amplification to detect HIV-1 and
hepatitis C in blood donors, and the possibility of vaccines using
replication-incompetent adenovirus vectors.
Methodology
To construct this database,
papers were extracted based on title-supplied keywords for HIV/AIDS. The keywords used were as follows:
HIV*
-or-
AIDS
-or-
human immunodeficiency virus*
-or_
acquired immune deficiency syndrome
The baseline time span for this database
is 1996-February 28, 2006 (first bimonthly period of 2006). The resulting database contained
50,012 (10 years)
and 10,519 (2 years) papers; 105,405 authors; 172 countries;
3,239 journals; and 16,873 institutions.
Rankings
Once the database was in place,
it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (two- and ten-year
periods), authors, journals,
institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1996-February 28,
2006 (a 10-year plus 2-month period).
The top 20 papers are ranked
according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution,
and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total
papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds and corresponding
percentages used to determine
scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to
total cites/paper, and total papers respectively are as follows:
| Entity: |
Scientists |
Institutions |
Countries |
Journals |
| Thresholds: |
37 |
121 |
18 |
32 |
| Percentage: |
1% |
1% |
50% |
10% |
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