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 May 2010 are listed below. To view featured
interviews from past months/years, visit the
Featured Interviews Main Menu.
Excerpt from the
interview: "In my mind, the
primary goal is not to predict
disease, nor to personalize
medicine. It’s to understand
the biological systems that
underlie common diseases—type
2 diabetes, for example, which is
my research focus. The problem that
got me started is very simple: why
is it that some people living in
our modern society..."
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Excerpt from the
interview: "My interests in
Physics and Astronomy were piqued
somewhat randomly around 7th-8th
grade when I picked up a used book
by someone I had occasionally seen
on TV named Carl Sagan. The book
was called Contact and
dealt in a very fascinating way
with the nature and pursuit of
knowledge, framed by this
awesome..."
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Excerpt from the
interview: "I started my
medical training at the University
of Edinburgh where I met a several
inspiring respiratory physicians,
particularly the late Professors
John Crofton and David Flemley who
were deeply concerned about the
problems of respiratory disease and
particularly obstructive lung
disease. As a result of that I
became a Medical..."
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From the analyses: "While
the recent earthquakes in Haiti,
Chile, and China have garnered
attention from the popular press
worldwide, scientists, of course,
have been making serious study of
earthquakes for well over a
century, and this month, Special
Topics examines the literature over
the past decade and over the past
two years..."
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Paul Emsley is the first CCP4
fellow in the Department of
Biochemistry at the University of
Oxford and coauthor, along with
Kevin Cowtan of the Department of
Chemistry at the University of
York, of the Chemistry Current
Classic paper for February, 2010:
"Coot: model-building tools for
molecular graphics," as published
in the journal ACTA CRYSTALLOGR
D-BIOL CRYST, Part 12, Sp.
Issue 1, in December, 2004.
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Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper
is the only success story of the
familial positional cloning of
obesity genes, a strategy combining
genome-wide linkage analysis and
candidate gene studies. ENPP1 is a
natural inhibitor the insulin
receptor which is associated with
insulin resistance and thus to T2D.
Furthermore, insulin is a strong
anorexigenic
hormone..."
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Excerpt from the
interview: "The journal was
founded in 1997, primarily by Colin
Rourke (Warwick) and Rob Kirby
(Berkeley), with the aim of
eventually replacing the journal
Topology, based in Oxford,
which had long been the premier
journal in the field. The pricing
policy of Topology was
perceived by many to be damaging
both to the journal..."
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Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper
was the first double-blind,
placebo-controlled paper showing
the efficacy of probiotics in IBD.
Pouchitis can be considered as a
recurrence of IBD in patients
operated on for ulcerative colitis.
We showed that using probiotics was
effective in preventing relapses of
pouchitis compared with
placebo..."
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Excerpt from the
interview: "Why do you think
your paper is highly cited?
Although it was traditionally
believed that
attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD) spontaneously
remitted in adolescence, evidence
has been accumulating to suggest
that a substantial proportion of
children with ADHD continue to be
symptomatic as adults and that
adult ADHD..."
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Excerpt from the
interview: "My main focus is
on ensuring that quantum computers
can work reliably in spite of their
extreme fragility. Quantum
computers are particularly
susceptible to decoherence, which
is the result of their inevitable
interactions with their
environments. Decoherence can be
thought of the process by which a
quantum system..."
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This month from
ScienceWatch.com, we have
listed our country rankings in
Environment/Ecology by total
citations. The data were extracted
from the
Essential Science
IndicatorsSM
database from
Clarivate. This database,
currently covering the period
January 1999 through December 31,
2009, surveys only journal articles
indexed by Clarivate.
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper
describes one of the earliest
attempts to integrate an entire
chemical reactor on a silicon chip,
namely, a miniaturized hydrogen
production chemical-plant-on-a-chip
for micro fuel cell applications.
As rechargeable battery technology
has matured in recent years, it
seems to be hitting a plateau in
terms of improvements in..."
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Excerpt from the
interview: "Colloidal
suspensions of
graphene platelets and
chemically modified graphene
platelets are of interest for both
fundamental and practical reasons.
Colloids have a wide range of uses,
such as in electrical energy
storage, paints, inks, composites,
paper materials, and so on. Also,
there are fascinating..."
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A survey of science in South Africa
shows that the nation has increased
its output of papers in the last
few years, and that the citation
impact of those papers exceeds the
world average in several main
fields. This performance is in
sharp contrast to a previous survey
in 1995, at which time South
Africa, still emerging from the
international isolation caused by
its policy of apartheid, was
notably weaker in science.
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