USP is the first in production of scientific articles on cannabidiol
International scientific study points out that four professors from the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto are among the top ten producers of studies in the area
By Jacqueline Passos (with information from USP Journal - Rose Talamone)
The analysis "Global Trends in Cannabis and Cannabidiol Research from 1940 to 2019" conducted among the 1,167 scientific articles published between 1940 and 2019, pointed out that the University of São Paulo (USP) is the institution that publishes the most articles on cannabidiol (CBD) in the world. In second place is King's College London, from the United Kingdom, with less than twice the number of publications of the first place, followed by the University of Jerusalem in Israel, and in fourth place, by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the United States.
Among the top ten researchers in the world who publish the most, four are from the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (FMRP) USP: Francisco Silveira Guimarães, Antonio Waldo Zuardi, José Alexandre Crippa, and Jaime Hallak, who ranked first, second, fifth, and seventh, respectively. The 1,167 articles evaluated, with 884 research articles and 283 reviews, were published by 62 different countries, with the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Brazil, and Canada leading the publications.
The study, recently published in the journal Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, used three software programs to analyze the performance of countries, institutions, authors, and journals, and considered the main databases of scientific relevance.
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The criteria evaluated in the study were not only the number of publications but also various bibliometric parameters, especially the total number of production, the global citation score, and the h-index (a performance indicator that quantitatively analyzes an author's scientific production, measuring both their productivity and the number of citations received from other researchers).
According to Francisco Silveira Guimarães, "it is always satisfying to have your work recognized by others. It is important to emphasize that I am far from being the most important researcher, or even one of the most important in this area. This position, for cannabinoids in general, belongs, in my view, to Professor Raphael Mechoulam [from the University of Jerusalem], with whom I have had the pleasure of collaborating for 30 years," he says.
The professor also highlights that, according to the article, one of the most important groups in this area is from USP in Ribeirão Preto. He even points out new researchers who are participating in the studies. "Some younger researchers trained in this group have joined this research and made important contributions. I highlight professors Alline C. Campos, Samia R. Joca, Felipe V. Gomes, Elaine Ap. Del Bel, Sabrina Lisboa, and Leonardo Resstel."
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This is not the first time that USP has gained international prominence for research on cannabidiol. Last year, the University was the subject of a report in The New York Times and received extensive coverage in the journal Nature.
Among the ten most productive institutions, Australia and Brazil (USP) have only one each, while the United Kingdom, Israel, the United States, and Italy have two institutions each. Leading with the greatest international contribution is the United Kingdom, followed by the United States and Brazil. King's College London was the institution that collaborated the most with USP. "It is observed that institutions with more published articles have closer cooperation among themselves compared to those with fewer published articles," says Guimarães.
While Guimarães stands out with works in the area of anxiety, showing the anxiolytic effects of CBD in various animal models, Professor Crippa has been working on the pharmacological effects and clinical trials of CBD, having found considerable evidence of the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective actions of the cannabinoid. "I believe that USP in Ribeirão Preto is unique in the interaction between basic and clinical research with cannabidiol because the pioneers in this area at our University have always sown the spirit of collaboration in a synergistic and reciprocal way," emphasizes Professor Crippa.
First Brazilian study dates back to the 1970s
According to the analysis, the first research publication on CBD emerged in 1940, with the peak of publications occurring in 2019, with 248 articles. The period from 2004 to 2012 saw the greatest increase in publications.
In 1960, Israeli biochemist Raphael Mechoulam unraveled the chemical structures of various marijuana compounds and tested their effects on his friends by mixing each of them into cake batter. In this "culinary" experiment, he observed that only those who ate cake with THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) exhibited the typical effects of the drug.
In the 1970s, the antiepileptic property of cannabidiol was uncovered by Brazilians Elisaldo Carlini and Isaac Karniol, from the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). Karniol was Zuardi's doctoral advisor, who continued these discoveries with his group at FMRP, where he has been working for over 40 years.
The group created from Zuardi's advisees and collaborators is also part of the National Institute of Translational Medicine Sciences and Technology (INCT-TM) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), coordinated by Professors Jaime Hallak, also from FMRP, and Flavio Kapczinski, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).