Paper short abstract:

We provide an analytical description of the network of actors, drugs and institutions involved in the field of oncology by resorting to quantitative tools in association with a qualitative investigation, in order to characterize the heterogeneous core-set that drives the field.

Paper long abstract:

In the last four decades, oncology has shifted from a small, marginal domain within biomedicine to one of the largest, most central and successful. It is now second only to cardiovascular medicine in terms of practitioners, research activities, biopharmaceutical investment and market size. Oncology has

pioneered the most innovative recent approaches to translational research. In spite of its staggering expansion, participants report that a relatively small number of oncologists appear to define the international research and treatment agenda, with unknown consequences for medicine and human health. Field investigations show that oncology research is rapidly switching from one hot topic to another at an increasing pace. In this paper we seek to unveil this dynamics

through an empirical quantitative analysis of scientific publications. We show how research topics are synchronized worldwide. Most importantly, we identify the key entities driving this global dynamics through the analysis of the heterogeneous network consisting of research teams and collaborative networks, the laboratory and clinical technologies employed, the entities (such as tissues, cells, genes, proteins, and biomarkers) they coproduce, and the changing landscape of institutions that host them.