cience Watch now takes its annual look back at the hottest of recent research. The table below presents the scientists who, as of late 2002, had published the greatest number of Hot Papers over the preceding two years. The following page lists the (non-review) papers published in 2002 that scored the highest citation counts by year’s end (papers cited more than 30 times as of late December).

In the latest update of the Hot Papers database, 18 researchers have each fielded six rapidly cited papers over the last two years—the first such tie since these yearly roundups began a decade ago. Leading the list (the names are ranked according to average citations per Hot Paper), and making his third consecutive year-end appearance, is Eric S. Lander of the Whitehead Institute. Lander’s half-dozen hot reports include two Nature blockbusters from 2001—both deriving from the publicly funded effort to sequence the human genome, and both continuing to rack up citations at a rapid clip (see the Biology Top Ten of this issue, paper #1 and #10). Three more of Lander’s Hot Papers were published last year and appear on the list of 2002’s most-cited reports: #33, #38, and #43, discussing the use of gene-expression profiling to predict outcome in lymphoma and other conditions.

Next on the list is Brian J. Druker, who, with coauthor Renaud Capdeville, has accounted for six hot reports on STI571 (imanitib mesylate), a compound that has achieved remarkable results in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia and which is being evaluated against other cancers (one such report ranks at #18 among 2002’s most cited). A coauthor on five of these reports is Charles L. Sawyers at UCLA, who also appears as author on a separate Hot Paper discussing STI571. Druker is interviewed in this issue.

Harvard colleagues Paul M. Ridker and Nader Rifai appear together on the list, thanks to six Hot Papers over the last two years on C-reactive protein as a marker of inflammation in cardiovascular disease and other conditions. Ridker was recently interviewed in these pages (see Science Watch, 13[6]: 3-4, November/December 2002).

The next seven names on the list, all in the field of Space Science and all having appeared in last year’s rundown, are among the coauthors on the MAXIMA-1 and BOOMERANG balloon-borne experiments examining the cosmic microwave background. One of their 2002 reports came in at #16 on the list of the year’s most cited.