June 9, 2019
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Review

Nanoinformatics: a new area of research in nanomedicine

Publicated to: International Journal of Nanomedicine. 7 3867-3890 - 2012-12-05 7(), DOI: 10.2147/IJN.S24582

Authors:

Maojo, V; Fritts, M; de la Iglesia, D; Cachau, RE; Garcia-Remesal, M; Mitchell, JA; Kulikowski, C
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Affiliations

NCI, Adv Biomed Comp Ctr, SAIC Frederick Inc, Frederick, MD 21701 USA - Author
NIST, Gaithersburg, MD 20899 USA - Author
Rutgers State Univ, Dept Comp Sci, Piscataway, NJ 08855 USA - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid, Fac Informat, Dept Inteligencia Artificial, Biomed Informat Grp, E-28660 Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Utah, Dept Biomed Informat, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 USA - Author
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Abstract

Over a decade ago, nanotechnologists began research on applications of nanomaterials for medicine. This research has revealed a wide range of different challenges, as well as many opportunities. Some of these challenges are strongly related to informatics issues, dealing, for instance, with the management and integration of heterogeneous information, defining nomenclatures, taxonomies and classifications for various types of nanomaterials, and research on new modeling and simulation techniques for nanoparticles. Nanoinformatics has recently emerged in the USA and Europe to address these issues. In this paper, we present a review of nanoinformatics, describing its origins, the problems it addresses, areas of interest, and examples of current research initiatives and informatics resources. We suggest that nanoinformatics could accelerate research and development in nanomedicine, as has occurred in the past in other fields. For instance, biomedical informatics served as a fundamental catalyst for the Human Genome Project, and other genomic and -omics projects, as well as the translational efforts that link resulting molecular-level research to clinical problems and findings.
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Keywords

biomedical informaticselectronic health recordsnanomedicinenanotoxicologyBio-technologiesBiomedical informaticsBiomedical researchCancer-therapyDrug-deliveryElectronic health recordsHealth-careHumansMedical informaticsMolecular-biologyNanomaterialsNanomedicineNanoparticlesNanotoxicologyOf-the-artOntologies

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal International Journal of Nanomedicine due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2012, it was in position 21/69, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Nanoscience & Nanotechnology.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 1.55. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 13, 2025)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 1.81 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2026-04-28, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 51
  • Scopus: 70
  • Europe PMC: 17
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-28:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 140.

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 8.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 2 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/16882/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 573
  • Downloads: 575
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United States of America.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (MAOJO GARCIA, VICTOR MANUEL) .

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been MAOJO GARCIA, VICTOR MANUEL.

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Awards linked to the item

The work of the authors in this area of research has been partially funded by the European Commission (the ACTION-Grid Support Action, FP7-224176), and the INBIOMEDvision (Coordination and Support Action, FP7-270107), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FIS/AES PS09/00069, RETICS COMBIOMED RD07/0067/0006, Ibero-NBIC CYTED 209RT0366), the Consejo Social of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, the Comunidad de Madrid and the National Center for Research Resources/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (Public Health Services research grants UL1-RR025764 and UL1RR025764-02S2). This project has also been funded in part with federal funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, under contract HHSN261200800001E. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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