The scientific impact of Mexican steroid research 1935-1965 : a bibliometric and historiographic analysis
Résumé
We studied steroid research from 1935 to 1965 that led to the discovery of the contraceptive pill and cortisone. Bibliometric and patent file searches indicate that the Syntex industrial laboratory located in Mexico and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) produced about 54% of the relevant papers published in mainstream journals, which in turn generated over 80% of the citations and in the case of Syntex, all industrial patents in the field between 1950 and 1965. This course of events, which was unprecedented at that time in a developing country, was interrupted when Syntex moved its research division to the US, leaving Mexico with a small but productive research group in the chemistry of natural products.