30 March 2010

Scottish scientist named as the world's most quoted biochemist

A University of Dundee scientist has been named as the world’s most quoted biochemist over the past 10 years in a survey that also identifies a colleague as among the top 20 in the field globally.

The research papers published by Sir Philip Cohen, Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit and of the SCottish Institute for ceLL Signalling (SCILLS) at Dundee, were mentioned (cited) 10,378 times over the past decade by other scientists in their research publications.

The survey is based on data provided by Thomson Reuters from its Essential Science Indicators between January 1st 1999 and October 31st 2009.

Commenting on the survey, Sir Philip said, 'I first entered these scientific 'pop charts' many years ago when I was named as the 126th most quoted scientist for papers published between the years of 1973 and 1984.

'It is gratifying to see that, so many years later, other biochemists around the world still enjoying reading my papers and that they find them sufficiently important to be worth mentioning in their own publications.'

The survey listed the top 20 biochemists in the world in terms of citations per published paper. Arranged in this way, Sir Philip ranked 18th in the world, while his colleague Professor Dario Alessi, the Deputy Director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee, was two places above him at 16th.

Professor Alessi was cited 78.04 times per paper (68 papers, 5,307 citations) during the period, while Sir Philip was cited 75.20 times per paper (138 papers, 10,378 citations).

There were two other UK-based scientists listed in the top 20, Professor Chris Dobson of University of Cambridge and Dr Rolf Apweiler of the European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge. Eleven biochemists from the USA, two from Japan, two from Germany and one from Switzerland were the other nationalities represented in the top 20.

Citations are regarded as one of the most important measures of excellence in basic research because they indicate the extent to which other scientists recognise its quality and use it in their own research.

The table, published in the latest edition of Times Higher Education, surveys journal articles indexed by Thomson Reuters. In total, 7,002 authors published papers in biochemistry between January 1999 and October 2009. Of these, 2,432 published 50 or more papers during the period surveyed.

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