Report summary

The 2024-2026 picture for University of Southern California Department of Biological Sciences is a 29-PI network with 7 internal PI collaborations. The research center of gravity is Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology as the leading field (30% of slots across 18 PIs; 18 labels), Molecular Biology as the leading subfield (18% of slots across 13 PIs; 13 labels), and Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology as the leading topic (6% of slots across 5 PIs; 5 labels). That is a thin collaboration pattern, useful for spotting individual pairs but less persuasive as a broad departmental network. The top weighted PIs are Peter Kühn (10 weighted works; CAR-T cell therapy research, Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics); Caleb E. Finch (9.8 weighted works; Alzheimer's disease research and treatments, Air Quality and Health Impacts). The strongest pairings are David A. Caron and Eric A. Webb (2 shared works, weight 1.1); David A. Hutchins and Fei‐Xue Fu (5 shared works, weight 0.9). The standout breakdown groups are group 1 with 4 PIs, 3 internal connections, weight 2.1, around Ecology, Molecular Biology, Oceanography, led by David A. Hutchins, David A. Caron, Fei‐Xue Fu.