Gene editing is an emerging technology that is promising for the prevention and treatment of human diseases. This paper reports an exploratory study of networks of authors of scientific research publications and of inventors involved in patents during the years 2000–2019 in the area of gene editing. We use patents to represent technological output and their non-patent references to represent scientific output that transferred knowledge to the technological output. We apply social network analysis to identify gatekeepers on the boundary of science and technology. We find that author–inventors are crucial for network-wide knowledge transfer as they connect parts of the network that are otherwise disconnected, and can thus be considered gatekeepers, they occupy prominent positions in the co-authorship and co-invention networks. In the area of gene editing, gatekeepers emerged during 2007–2013 and increased significantly in number during 2014–2019. Our results suggest that there are differences in the brokerage role of gatekeepers identified by different indicators. Top gatekeepers identified by betweenness and Q -measure are in areas with intensive knowledge flow among authors and inventors, whereas gatekeepers occupying more structural hole may be in areas with sparse knowledge flow.

中文翻译：

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科学与技术之间知识转移的守门人：基因编辑领域的探索性研究

基因编辑是一项新兴技术，有望用于人类疾病的预防和治疗。本文报告了对 2000 年至 2019 年间基因编辑领域科学研究出版物作者和参与专利的发明人网络的探索性研究。我们使用专利来表示技术输出，使用专利的非专利引用来表示将知识转移到技术输出的科学输出。我们应用社交网络分析来识别科技边界上的守门人。我们发现作者-发明人对于网络范围的知识转移至关重要，因为他们连接了网络中原本断开连接的部分，因此可以被视为看门人，他们在共同作者和共同发明网络中占据重要位置。在基因编辑领域，守门人在 2007-2013 年期间出现，并在 2014-2019 年期间显着增加。我们的结果表明，不同指标所确定的看门人的经纪角色存在差异。由介数和 Q 度量确定的顶级守门人位于作者和发明者之间知识流密集的区域，而占据更多结构漏洞的守门人可能位于知识流稀疏的区域。