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 March 2009 are listed below.
To view featured interviews from past months/years, visit the
Featured
Interviews Main Menu.
Excerpt from the
interview: "...our paper is
highly cited because it provides a
comprehensive overview of all
aspects of outer membrane (OM)
biogenesis in gram-negative
bacteria. Most previous reviews
dealt with only outer membrane
proteins (OMPs), or lipids, or
lipoproteins. Also, there has been
a lot of progress in this field in
recent years, with the..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The paper did
describe several new concepts and
methodologies, such as pseudo amino
acid composition, or PseAA
composition, hybridization of the
"higher level" approach with the
ab initio approach,
ensemble classifier, and how to
deal with multiplex proteins which
may simultaneously exist
at..."
View Article
Stewart Cole - Special
Topic of Tuberculosis Interview
Excerpt from the
interview: "I was working on
leprosy originally, and there are
quite a lot of similarities between
the leprosy bacillus and the
tuberculosis bacillus. Even in the
mid-1980s, there were quite a lot
of cases of multi-drug resistant
TB, which was becoming a major
problem in the industrialized world
again. So I decided to make a
sideways..."
View Article
According to
Essential Science
IndicatorsSM from
Clarivate, among the 147
top-performing countries in all
fields, Italy ranked #7 for
citations (4,167,807), #8 for
papers (400,229), and #26 (10.41)
for citations per paper. This
feature includes rankings in all
fields for Italy for the time
period of 1998-October 31,
2008.
View Article
ScienceWatch.compresents
a listing of the top 20
institutions which, according to
our Special Topic on
Epigenetics, attracted the
highest total citations to their
papers published on the topic
in
Clarivate-indexed
journals. These institutions are
the top 20 ranked by total cites
out of a pool of 4,877 institutions
publishing on this topic,
based solely on the keyword
"epigenet*" in the titles,
abstracts, and keywords sections of
papers.
View Article
Excerpt from
the interview: "In my paper
I have presented many classes of
graphene nanoribbons and
proposed their systematic
classification in terms of the
edge shape and the width.
Nanoribbons have a wide variety
of electronic properties
depending on the edge shape and
the width. These electronic
properties are amazingly rich
in..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "I can't think of
an occasion in which I have seen so
many of my psychologist colleagues
pick up a new research method and
start to make use of it. Wide
adoption of the method was helped
because it required no more
equipment than a standard desktop
computer. I am sure that part of
the interest others had in
using..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The science of
epigenetics blossomed in the
mid-1990s and has remained in full
flower ever since. Epigenetic
regulation is now known to play
fundamental roles in everything
from cancer to cloning to
stem cells.
Leading this epigenetic
revolution is Rudolf Jaenisch of
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Jaenisch
has..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The paper
highlighted the re-awakening of
long-known knowledge: that what an
individual eats will affect one's
health (Hippocrates: "Let medicine
be your food and food your
medicine.") The only difference
from that ancient, but largely
ignored, knowledge is the ability
in the modern era to conduct
high-throughput analyses..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "LWT
– Food Science and Technology
(LWT) has been published by
Elsevier since 2004, following its
acquisition of the journal’s
previous publisher, Academic Press.
Ownership of the journal has
recently transferred to Elsevier
from the Swiss Society for Food
Science and Technology (SGLWT). LWT
began publishing in
1968..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper is the
first atomic-level description of
the structure formed by folding
human telomeric DNA, crystallized
in near-physiological conditions.
That itself continues to be of
interest and is used as a template
for the discovery of novel small
molecules as Telomere Targeting
Agents. The structure, though, is
remarkable..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The concept of
photonic crystals, which was
introduced in the 1980s, is
essentially the photonic analogue
of band electrons in solids. A
dielectric structure whose
refractive index is periodically
modulated can exhibit a variety of
novel optical properties due to its
band nature. Photonic crystals were
first realized in radio
frequencies..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "My research
focuses on exploring the manner in
which different cell types in a
tissue interact and communicate to
regulate the growth and
differentiation of gonads. We were
investigating the effects of the
environmental compounds on gonadal
sex determination and
serendipitously found these
epigenetic
transgenerational..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This is a review
article, presenting the state of
the art in the field of CA
inhibitors and activators, as well
as their applications in therapy.
It presents diverse methodologies
useful in the drug design of
different pharmacological agents
based on CAIs and CA activators
(CAAs). This paper represents a
thorough review of all these novel
applications of CAIs/CAAs, updated
with the latest developments in the
field...."
View Article
The customary annual roundup of
recent research highlights the
scientists who fielded the greatest
number of Hot Papers during the
last year, and also lists the
papers published in 2008 that were
most cited by year's end. In the
latter group, the physical sciences
are especially prominent, notably
in reports on iron-based
superconductors and on recent
refinements to the branch of string
theory known as M-theory.
View Article
(Additional
interviews/commentaries may be
added during March 2009.)