In these interviews, scientists talk to ScienceWatch.com and
offer behind-the-scenes insights into their research: reflections on
what led them to their chosen field, the motivation driving their work
in a given direction, and the challenges encountered along on the way.
These authors also offer their views on why their work has wielded
particular influence in the scientific community, as indicated by
Clarivate
citation data, and on how research in their respective fields has
progressed over time and will likely unfold in the future.
Featured interviews for August 2009 are listed below.
To view featured interviews from past months/years, visit the
Featured Interviews Main Menu.
Excerpt from the
interview: "Isoniazid is one
of the most important TB drugs. Of
the 7.8 million people who get
diagnosed with TB, virtually all of
them will receive isoniazid. It's a
hugely important drug. We had no
effort in our lab in that drug. It
was an area I was only peripherally
interested in. I had read a lot of
stuff on it, when a paper that
predated ours came out in
Science..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "In the summer of
1994, I went to work with Ed
Fenimore at Los Alamos National
Laboratory for my first research
project. With astronomy, and with
Dr. Fenimore in particular, it's
very easy for a young person to
catch the research bug: it's a
wonderfully vast physical science
that we know so little about, and
Ed made the challenge of..."
View Article
Bisphenol A (BPA) is an organic
compound that is widely used in the
plastics industry. Although it has
been suspected of being hazardous
to human health since the 1930s,
only recently have serious
inquiries into its safety been
conducted. This month, Special
Topics examines the literature on
BPA over the past decade and over
the past two years. View
Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This manuscript
reported the first data on human
exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) in
the United States. Specifically,
our data were the first to confirm
that exposure to BPA occurs among a
diverse non-occupationally exposed
group of US adults. Biomonitoring
(i.e., measurement of
environmental..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I was an
undergraduate at the University of
Warwick, located in the heart of
England. My bachelor degree is in
physics, and I remained at Warwick
for a Ph.D., on the topic of
inelastic gamma-ray scattering
(nothing to do with
superconductivity!). After that, in
1986, I joined one of the
UK’s few remaining industrial
laboratories..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I think the paper
is highly cited as it is a very
comprehensive review that covers
three important, interrelated areas
concerning oxidatively damaged DNA.
These are (i) mechanisms of
formation; I was very happy that
Miral Dizdaroglu agreed to become a
co-author, and he provided the
expertise for this section; (ii)
effects of..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I'm an
endocrinologist by training, and
I've been interested in diabetes
and kidney disease since the early
1980s. Then in the late 1980s,
several groups suggested that
diabetic kidney disease was not
only related to high glucose, but
also that there may actually be a
hemodynamic pathway within the
kidney, the..."
View Article
This map of
Geosciences is based on
research-front data for the
six-year period ending in February
2009. The map shows the major
fields of chemistry linked together
in a network based on the same
principles as our research-front
maps showing highly cited papers.
Each circle on the map represents a
group, or cluster, of research
fronts on a broad topic within the
main field.
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Both animal
experiments and human
epidemiological studies demonstrate
that maternal nutritional privation
during pregnancy is adversely
associated with an
offspring’s susceptibility to
diseases and neurological disorders
after birth. Our 2003 Molecular
and Cellular Biology paper
provided the first
experimental..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This research
paper is novel and very timely
considering that there are
widespread urgent concerns
regarding the environmental
implications of
nanotechnologies/nanoparticles
(NP). First, we provided valuable
and reliable quantitative
information on the ecotoxicity of
three metal oxide nanoparticles
(TiO2, ZnO and
CuO)..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I graduated from
the School of Medicine at Tokyo
Medical and Dental University in
1991, and finished the internal
medicine residency program in 1993.
I started my research career with
studies on molecular immunology and
received a Ph.D. in 1996. After
that, I joined Dr. Yoshinori
Ohsumi’s laboratory at the
National Institute for..."
View Article
This month,
ScienceWatch.com presents
a listing of the top 20
institutions which, as of the
second bimonthly update of
Essential Science
IndicatorsSM
(January 1, 1999-April 30, 2009)
attracted the highest total
citations to their papers published
in
Clarivate-indexed
journals over all 22 fields in the
database.
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Danny Porath is
Senior Lecturer in the Department
of Physical Chemistry at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and lead
author of the
Current
Classic Multidisciplinary paper
for
February, 2009, entitled:
"Direct measurement of electrical
transport through DNA molecules,"
NATURE 403[6770]: 635-38,
Feb. 2000..." Podcast.
Listen:
MP3 ¦
WMA
Excerpt from the
interview: "Dirk
Schübeler, a Senior Group
Leader in Epigenetics at the
Friedrich Miescher Institute for
Biomedical Research in Basel,
Switzerland. Dr. Schübeler is
the lead author of the most-cited
paper listed in the Research Front
Map titled,
"
Dna and Rna Sequencing," from
Top Topics for
April 2009 from the field of
Molecular Biology &..." Podcast.
Listen:
MP3 ¦
WMA
Excerpt from the
interview: "Since its
launch in 1992, the journal has
enjoyed a leading position in the
field of smart materials, systems,
and structures, with a steady flow
of articles. However, a few years
ago we at IOP Publishing made
several changes to the way we
managed the journal. We brought the
management of submitted articles
in-house..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "My education was
initially in medicine. At Rutgers
University I switched from Human
Physiology to Comparative Exercise
Physiology for my Ph.D. when I
found that animals were capable of
extraordinary feats of athleticism
and disease resistance—at
least compared to the human animal.
What I found most fascinating
was..."
View Article
Top 20 Countries in
Agricultural
Sciences,
1999-April 30, 2009 -
Country Feature
Extracted from the
Essential Science
IndicatorsSM
database from
Clarivate,
ScienceWatch.com presents
a listing of the top 20 countries
in Agricultural Sciences. Rankings
are listed by citations per
paper—among nations that
collected 10,000 or more citations
during the period (January 1999
through April 30, 2009)—to
reveal weighted impact.
View Article