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Thomson Scientific Examines Biology's Hottest Institutions, Authors and Journals

PHILADELPHIA and LONDON, Feb. 20 PRNewswire-FirstCall — Thomson Scientific, part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) and leading provider of information solutions to the worldwide research and business communities, today announced the results of a study assessing high-impact research in molecular biology and genetics. In the January/February issue of Science Watch, Thomson Scientific analyzes data from its Essential Science Indicators to identify molecular biology and genetics papers that rank among the top one percent most cited in the field for their respective years of publication between 2002 and 2006.

From the resulting sample of 1,300 high-impact papers, Science Watch highlighted the institutions, researchers, and journals most heavily represented. Such analysis is typically found in Science Watch, which uses unique citation data to provide rankings, interviews and reports on today's most significant science.

Among institutions, the top spot went to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which was the most-cited institution in the field with nearly 38,000 citations to its 199 high-impact papers. (HHMI also took top honors in 2000 when Science Watch last surveyed this field.) Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) rounded out the top three with 31,725 and 24,868 citations, respectively.

Top Ten Molecular Biology/Genetics Institutions Ranked by Citations, 2002-2006 Total Number of Rank Institution Citations 1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute 37,810 2 Harvard University 31,725 3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 24,868 4 Whitehead Institute 11,326 5 University of California, San Diego 11,120 6 Cold Spring Harbor Lab 10,767 7 University of California, Berkeley 9,756 8 Baylor College of Medicine 9,754 9 University of Oxford 9,421 10 Max Planck Society 9,354

"When evaluating a research field, it's important to look at more than total citations to an institution's work," said Christopher King, editor of Science Watch. "Measures like 'citation impact' give us other indicators of research influence and significance as viewed by the scientific community. These measures allow smaller institutions, which generally publish fewer papers, to highlight their contributions to a field."

According to the measure of citation impact (or average number of citations per paper), the University of California, Santa Cruz produced the highest score, averaging 414.5 cites per paper, even though UC Santa Cruz authors contributed to a comparatively small quantity of 13 high-impact reports during the five-year period. One of these reports, however—a landmark 2002 study on the mouse genome—has been cited more than 1,700 times and is the most-cited paper in the survey. The National Human Genome Research Institute came in second place with 337.5 cites per paper followed closely by Cold Spring Harbor Lab with 336.5.

Molecular Biology/Genetics Top Ten Institutions Ranked by Citation Impact, 2002-2006 Citations per Rank Institution Paper 1 University of California, Santa Cruz 414.5 2 National Human Genome Research Institute 337.5 3 Cold Spring Harbor Lab 336.5 4 University of Utah 335.6 5 Medical Research Council (U.K.) 333.1 6 Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle 329.8 7 European Molecular Biology Lab 326.9 8 University of Oxford 324.9 9 Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute 311.6 10 Pennsylvania State University 304.4

This study also ranked the top 25 molecular biology/genetics authors by their number of high-impact papers. Eric S. Lander, of MIT and Broad Institute secured first place with his impressive 22 high-impact papers, which garnered 9,710 citations, for an average of 441.4 citations per paper. Coming in second was David P. Bartel of HHMI, MIT and Whitehead Institute with 19 papers, 4,542 citations and 239.1 cites per paper. C. David Allis of Rockefeller University followed Bartel with 13 papers, 1,986 citations and 152.8 cites per paper.

Molecular Biology/Genetics Top Ten Authors Ranked by High Impact Papers, 2002-2006 Number of Rank Author Papers 1 Eric S. Lander 22 2 David P. Bartel 19 3 C. David Allis 13 4 W. James Kent 12 5 Gregory J. Hannon 12 6 Thomas Jenuwein 11 7 Yi Zhang 11 8 Mark J. Daly 10 9 David Haussler 10 10 David Altshuler 10

To complete this study, Science Watch also took a look at journals that had published at least 20 high-impact papers during the five-year period. Cell ranked number one with 258 high-impact papers followed by Nature with 154 and Science with 149.

Molecular Biology/Genetics Top Ten Journals Ranked by High Impact Papers, 2002-2006 Number of Rank Journal Papers 1 Cell 258 2 Nature 154 3 Science 149 4 Nature Genetics 104 5 Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 93 6 Genes & Development 61 7 Molecular Cell 58 8 Nature Review Genetics/Nature Cell Biology 35 9 Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences 29 10 American Journal of Human Genetics 24

Methodology:

"For the study, we turned our attention to those institutions that fielded at least ten high-impact reports over the five-year period," said Christopher King, editor of Science Watch. "We used this benchmark along with a subset of reports collected from Essential Science Indicators' 'Highly Cited Papers.' By doing so, we were able to compile nearly 1,300 papers with which we identified high-impact authors and journals."

About The Thomson Corporation

The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com) is a global leader in providing essential electronic workflow solutions to business and professional customers. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to professionals in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, scientific research and healthcare. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).

Thomson Scientific is a business of The Thomson Corporation. Its information solutions assist professionals at every stage of research and development-from discovery to analysis to product development and distribution. Thomson Scientific information solutions can be found at scientific.thomson.com.

SOURCE Thomson Scientific

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