Artemisinin was first extracted from the herb Artemisia annua which has been used for many centuries in Chinese traditional medicine as a treatment for fever and malaria. It has been given the 2011 Lasker-DeBakey clinical medical research award. In this paper, knowledge map of artemisinin research was drawn to provide some information for global researchers interested in artemisinin and its relevant references.

In this work, bibliometric analysis and knowledge visualization technology were applied to evaluate global scientific production and developing trend of artemisinin research through Science Citation Index (SCI) papers and Medline papers with online version published as following aspects: publication outputs, subject categories, journals, countries, international collaboration, citations, authorship and co-authorship, author key words and co-words analysis. The Thomson Data Analyzer (TDA), Netdraw and Aureka software were employed to analyze the SCI as well as Medline papers data for knowledge mapping.

Global literature of artemisinin research has increased rapidly over the past 30 years and has boosted in recent years. Seen from the statistical study in many aspects, Pharmacology & Pharmacy, and Chemistry are still the main subjects of artemisinin research with parasitology and tropical medicine increasing quickly. Malaria Journal and American Journal of Tropical Medicine are top productive journals both in SCI and Medline databases. Quantity and quality of papers in US are in a leading position, although papers quantity and active degree in developing countries such as P.R. China, Thailand and India are relatively high, the quality of papers from these countries needs to be improved. New emerging key words and co-words remind us that mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, artemisinin-based alternatives, etc. are the future trends of artemisinin research.

Through bibliometric analysis the development trends of artemisinin research are predicted. With further development of artemisinin research, it is presumed that scientists might concentrate mainly on the synthesis of new compounds with activity, action mechanism, new artemisinin-based combination therapy regimens, etc.

http://www.mrcindia.org/journal/ Knowledge map of artemisinin research in SCI and Medline database.pdf