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 June 2009 are listed below. To
view featured interviews from past months/years, visit the
Featured Interviews Main Menu.
Excerpt from the
interview: "The paper
published in 2002 was the first
clinical study in which an
inhibitor of dipeptidyl peptidase-4
(DPP-4) was examined in subjects
with type 2 diabetes. The study was
the proof-of-concept of the
strategy to inhibit DPP-4 as a
therapy in type 2 diabetes. The
study was performed at five
different research centers in
Sweden..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "...in this
paper we reviewed a recent
development in the field of TB
diagnosis, and that was the use of
the interferon gamma tests for the
detection of TB infection. The
reason why this was very timely was
due to our identification of the
ESAT-6 and CFP-10 antigens that are
both highly specific for M.
tuberculosis and lacking in
all..."
View Article
Extracted from the Essential
Science Indicators database of
Clarivate,
ScienceWatch.com presents
a listing of the top 20 countries
in Molecular Biology &
Genetics. Rankings are listed by
citations per paper—among
nations that collected 10,000 or
more citations during the period
(January 1999 through February 28,
2009)—to reveal weighted
impact.
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I am a Ph.D.
(1978) and professor (2000) at Lund
University, Sweden, where I have
spent practically all my scientific
life, now coming close to
retirement. I have been teaching
analytical chemistry and
environmental science for decades
and my research has been centered
in separation science, in the
earlier years..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "JCTC was
launched in 2005 as a bimonthly
publication with Prof. William
Jorgensen (Yale University) as the
editor. One-hundred and
thirty-three articles were
published in the inaugural volume.
In 2008, the journal expanded to 12
issues per year, published 219
articles, and added Prof. Ursula
Rothlisberger (Swiss
Federal..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I’ve had a
long-term clinical interest in the
care of patients with diabetes, but
it wasn’t until my
Endocrinology fellowship in the
early 1980s that I became
interested in doing research on the
prevention and risk prediction of
diabetes. Even at that time, type 2
diabetes seemed like a largely
preventable disease through
lifestyle..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I became
fascinated with high-energy
astrophysics and cosmology during
postdoctoral stints at Princeton
and Cambridge (UK). I worked on
early versions of cold dark matter
cosmology and black hole accretion
problems, and until 1990 I
concentrated mainly on black holes
and magnetized neutron
stars..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Dark matter halos,
as far as we can tell, surround all
observable galaxies. Based on the
'double dark' cosmological model
(dark matter and dark energy),
these halos and the galaxies within
them have formed via halo-halo
merging. In order to do this
research, it was necessary to
perform supercomputer
simulations..."
View Article
David Sheehan discusses his
Current
Classics
(
Feb. 2009) paper: “The
Mini-International Neuropsychiatric
Interview (MINI): The development
and validation of a structured
diagnostic psychiatric interview
for DSM-IV and ICD-10,” J
CLIN PSYCHIAT: 59:22-33,
Suppl. 20, 1998. Read an interview
with
David Sheehan.
Listen:
MP3 ¦
WMA
Excerpt from the
interview: "Our paper is the
first ever to describe a formal
methodology to assess how well a
number of mathematical models
describe a specific biological
mechanism. This ability to rank
plausible models based on
experimental evidence is of
enormous importance to life
scientists as it provides a formal,
objective, and rational..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The 2007
Cell paper describes how
we generated human iPS cells. We
added one
procedure—lentiviral
transduction of ecotropic receptor
of retrovirus before transduction
of the same set of the four genes
into adult skin cells by
retrovirus. The procedure improved
the efficiency of retroviral
transduction and secured the safety
of..."
View Article
The Zoological Society of San
Diego's current record in plant
& animal science includes 228
papers cited a total of 1,545 times
between January 1, 1999 and
February 28, 2009. In this second
of a three-part series,
ScienceWatch.com's
Jennifer Minnick takes a virtual
tour of the Zoo and its various
research projects and conservation
efforts.
View Article
(Additional
interviews/commentaries may be
added during June 2009.)