A Decade of CRISPR Gene Editing in China and Beyond: A Scientometric Landscape

Abstract

Since its Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough in 2012, CRISPR-Cas-based gene-editing system has emerged as one of the most promising biotechnologies in decades. In this article, we present an objective and comprehensive evaluation of CRISPR-based gene-editing technologies, including base editing and prime editing, based on the bibliometric analysis of 22,902 published records. We also assessed the status of CRISPR gene-editing technologies in academia from 2010 to 2020 globally, with respect to countries, institutions, and researchers, and used text clustering methods to assess technical trends and research hotspots. Our results indicate, not surprisingly, that this is a thriving and prominent area of research. By comparing the relevance and growth of CRISPR geneediting technologies in China with other countries by several metrics, we show that the Chinese scientific community attaches considerable importance to the field of plant genome engineering, with more scholars from agricultural sectors than other sectors.

Managing New Technology When Effective Control is Lost: Facing Hard Choices With CRISPR

“…By 2014, that number had increased to 500 per year. It has grown significantly to over 5400 per year in 2021 (Huang et al 2019; Zhou et al 2021). About half of these publications are US based, but the remaining thousands of articles appear in publications from China, Germany, the UK, France, Korea, and other countries.…”

Editorial: Regulation and governance of gene editing technologies (CRISPR, etc.)

“…The preceding 40-plus years of research and commercial activity with genetic engineering technologies also served to identify a considerable range of applications or suggest new avenues for development where CRISPR might improve on existing genetic modification practices. Accordingly, global research on gene editing, as indicated by the number of publications (Asquer and Krachkovskaya, 2021;Zhou et al, 2021) and patent filings (Bicudo et al, 2022), has demonstrated a steep increase since 2012. From being a niche research interest, gene editing must now be considered a field of international scientific, commercial, and increasingly, public interest (Martin et al, 2020).…”