Current and evolving knowledge domains of cubosome studies in the new millennium

Cubosomes have aroused growing interest recently due to their widespread applications in pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic industries, etc. Especially, they demonstrate many advantages as drug delivery systems. However, no pharmaceutical products have been translated from bench to bedside so far. To promote the translation of the drug delivery system candidate, it is significant to accumulate fundamental and applied-fundamental knowledge of cubosomes. In the study, a bibliometric study upon cubosome research was carried out on the basis of Web of Science Core Collection database to figure out current and evolving knowledge domains of the published studies in a logical and robust way, summarizing the status quo and pointing out the future directions of cubosome research. Four questions which are pending addressed were answered by applying this research method and some conclusions were drawn: (1) Australia could be viewed as the most productive contributor for cubosome research. (2) Langmuir might be the most influential publishing media. (3) Using cubosomes as drug delivery carriers was a hot topic. (4) Adopting cubosomes as ocular drug delivery vehicles would continue to be a frequently studied aspect. In addition, cubosomes serve as alternative vector deliver active pharmaceutical ingredients to the brain and encapsulate active components extracted from herbal and traditional medicines in cubosomes are the burgeoning trends. By answering the four questions, productive contributors, influential publishing media, current research foci, and future directions were figured out. Hence, the current and evolving knowledge domains of cubosome studies were illustrated. Graphical Abstract