Center for Clinical Neurophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Vrazov trg 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Group for Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Department of Animal Science, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Jamnikarjeva 101, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2019 Aug 1;366(15). doi: 10.1093/femsle/fnz159.
In this work, the position of contemporary microbiology is considered from the perspective of scientific success, and a list of historical points and lessons learned from the fields of medical microbiology, microbial ecology and systems biology is presented. In addition, patterns in the development of top-down research topics that emerged over time as well as overlapping ideas and personnel, which are the first signs of trans-domain research activities in the fields of metagenomics, metaproteomics, metatranscriptomics and metabolomics, are explored through analysis of the publication networks of 28 654 papers using the computer programme Pajek. The current state of affairs is defined, and the need for meta-analyses to leverage publication biases in the field of microbiology is put forward as a very important emerging field of microbiology, especially since microbiology is progressively dealing with multi-scale systems. Consequently, the need for cross-fertilisation with other fields/disciplines instead of 'more microbiology' is needed to advance the field of microbiology as such. The reader is directed to consider how novel technologies, the introduction of big data approaches and artificial intelligence have transformed microbiology into a multi-scale field and initiated a shift away from its history of mostly manual work and towards a largely technology-, data- and statistics-driven discipline that is often coupled with automation and modelling.
在这项工作中，从科学成功的角度考虑了当代微生物学的地位，并提出了一系列来自医学微生物学、微生物生态学和系统生物学领域的历史观点和经验教训。此外，通过使用计算机程序 Pajek 对 28654 篇论文的出版网络进行分析，探讨了随着时间的推移作为元基因组学、元蛋白质组学、元转录组学和代谢组学领域跨领域研究活动的第一个迹象的自上而下的研究主题的发展模式以及重叠的想法和人员。当前的情况已经确定，并提出了需要进行元分析以利用微生物学领域的出版偏差，这是微生物学中一个非常重要的新兴领域，特别是因为微生物学正在逐步处理多尺度系统。因此，需要与其他领域/学科进行交叉授粉，而不是“更多的微生物学”，以推进微生物学领域本身。建议读者考虑新技术、引入大数据方法和人工智能如何将微生物学转变为一个多尺度的领域，并促使其从历史上主要是手工工作的领域转向主要是由技术、数据和统计学驱动的学科，该学科通常与自动化和建模相结合。
