Biomedical innovation at the laboratory, clinical and commercial interface: A new method for mapping research projects, publications and patents in the field of microarrays

Using the example of microarrays, one of the constitutive technologies of post-genomic biomedicine, this paper introduces a method for analyzing publications, patents and research grants as proxies for “triple-helix interfaces” between university, industry and government activities. Our method creates bridges that allow one to move seamlessly between publication, patent and research project databases that use different fields and formats, and contain different information. These links do not require pre-defined categories in order to search for correspondences between sub-topics or research areas in the three databases. Finally, our results are not restricted to quantitative information but, rather, allow one to carry out qualitative investigations of the content of research activities. Our approach draws on a combination of text-mining and network analysis/mapping software packages.