China’s strides in academic research seen to narrow US lead in medical science

 


China is rapidly narrowing the gap with the United States in medical research publications, a trend fuelled by both government policies and the development of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a top scientific publisher. Marie Souliere, head of editorial ethics and quality assurance at Frontiers, one of the biggest academic publishers in the world, said she had seen China’s overall research output slowly overtake that of the US, and the lead was most striking in the field of medicine.

“China overtook the US in share of medicine-related articles in 2019, with 22 per cent of our published content in those fields, versus 19 per cent for the US. Since then, the China share has grown, and maintains around 40 per cent,” Souliere said in an interview with the Post this month. “At Frontiers alone, 15,158 medicine articles by Chinese researchers were published in 2023, almost eight times more than … in 2019.”

“China’s rise in cancer research, particularly in oncology and immunology, gained momentum around 2010, fuelled by significant policy changes and investments in innovation,” Souliere said. “Before 2010, China’s focus in drug development was largely on generic medications. However, by 2016, regulatory reforms like faster clinical trial reviews and partnerships with global companies began driving rapid advances in cancer research, especially in immuno-oncology and cell therapy,” she added.

“Now we have good journals in medicine, oncology and immunology and we publish a lot of good papers from China in these three.” According to publishing database Dimensions, in 2023, the US contributed 138,120 medical publications, whereas China published 96,772 – or 70 per cent of the US total. The rate of growth has been significant: in 2019, China’s contribution of 53,948 publications was less than half that of the US.

Total global academic output in the field of oncology from 2017 to 2021 was 324,753 articles, with the US ranking first at 22 per cent and China in second place at 20 per cent, followed by Japan, Italy and Germany, according to a 2023 report from the publisher Elsevier. The proportion of Chinese papers published in the top 10 per cent of high-impact academic journals in the field rose from 6 per cent in 2017 to 10 per cent in 2021, indicating rapid growth in both the quantity and quality of China’s academic achievements, according to Elsevier.


Souliere said government support and AI development had played equal roles in the trends from China. “First, research in this field aligns with the goal of the government. Secondly, I think there’s a lot happening in China in terms of AI research for medicine and precise treatments with immunology and different things,” she said. In the past, AI-related academic achievements appeared mostly in computer science, engineering science, and mathematics. But the proportion of AI boosted research in medicine, molecular biology, and pharmacology has increased significantly. AI has liberated productivity in research areas such as molecular simulation and medical imaging.


“It used to be such a huge field of research that people would dedicate 40 years to crystallising a particular molecule and building its 3D model. And now AI can make predictions on its own with humans to validate. Some fields of research are becoming a little bit obsolete with AI already,” Souliere said.While AI has opened up new disciplines and revolutionised traditional ones, China appears to have benefited from the trend more than other countries in terms of academic growth, according to Souliere.

“We found the US and China together publish 50 per cent of all AI research in the world. In Europe, people focus more on policy and ethics. In the United States, they focus a bit more on healthcare or defence. And in China, it is really about economic growth and infrastructure. State funding plays more important roles,” she said. While the US remains a leader in medical research, the gap between the two countries appears to be narrowing, suggesting China is becoming a formidable player in shaping the future of global healthcare.

With AI leading the transformation, China’s contribution to medical advances – particularly in cancer research and personalised treatments – could reshape how the world tackles some of the most pressing health challenges. “It was really great to see this growth and the quality of research and papers coming out of China over the years,” Souliere said.

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