Patenting Networking and Knowledge Translation in Liposomes for Cancer Therapy

We have constructed a citation network model of the 20% most cited patent families on cancer and liposomes. This model was structurally analyzed through a combination of two Cytoscape plugins: Clust and AllegroMCODE. We found four patent meta-families (densely interconnected regions) in the network model. Three of the four patent meta-families are related to specific anti-cancer liposomal formulations: LEP-ETU, LE-DT, Doxil® and Marqibo®. This model was compared with a previous study on the knowledge translation in literature network. Both models show that liposome used as a carrier of old drugs is simultaneously the paradigm and the dominant design for liposomes and cancer. Our results evidence that the innovation process in this field, is conservative and continuous.