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 October 2008 are listed below.
To view featured interviews from past months/years, visit the
Featured
Interviews Main Menu.
According to Essential Science
Indicators, among the 148
top-performing countries in all
fields, Australia ranked #11 for
citations (2,662,008), #9 for
papers (261,001), and #25 (10.20)
for citations per paper. This
feature includes rankings in all
fields for Australia.
View Article
According to a recent analysis of
Essential Science
IndicatorsSM from
Clarivate, the journal
Autoimmunity is having a
growing impact in the field of
Immunology. Its current record in
this field includes 731 papers
cited a total of 4,600 times. In
this interview ,
ScienceWatch.com
correspondent Gary Taubes talks
with Editor-in-Chief Dr. Paolo
Casali about
Autoimmunity's history and
citation record.
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "In 2000 we
developed and published in
Marine Pollution Bulletin
an index of quality—a Marine
Biotic Index (AMBI)—which has
since been applied to different
anthropogenic impacts in many
geographical areas—throughout
the European Union, Uruguay,
Brazil, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
China, the USA, Mexico..."
View Article
Marcella
Calfon from
Massachusetts General Hospital,
Boston - Podcast
Marcella Calfon is the
lead author of a citation classic
article on the protein IRE 1. Here
she discusses her career and
research in the field of
cardiovascular physiology. She has
been named a
Current
Classics scientist (Multi.)
for
Apr. 2008.
Listen:
MP3|WMA
Excerpt from the
interview: "In this
paper, we assessed the effect of
interferon beta-1a on the
occurrence of relapses in patients
after the first clinical episode of
central nervous system involvement
and brain MRI lesions; these
patients are at high risk of
conversion to clinically definite
MS. Patients were randomly assigned
to interferon beta-1a 22 mcg or
placebo..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "...we have team of
more than 100 people that is fully
dedicated to research on cervical
cancer. We have trained scientists,
epidemiologists, physicians,
microbiologists, molecular
biologists, and statisticians. The
Guanacaste Project is a large
research center, fully dedicated to
HPV and cervical cancer. It is a
..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Easy-to-use
matching methods have been
recognized as offering one way to
avoid some statistical modeling
assumptions, but crucial results in
this fast-growing literature have
been grossly misinterpreted. We
show how to avoid these
misinterpretations through a new
unified approach to causal
inference..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The global AIDS
pandemic continues to endanger the
health of people worldwide and it
is now estimated that 40 million
people are currently infected with
HIV. Research on A3G is critical
for developing new antiviral
strategies to combat this
devastating disease. To achieve
this goal, it is urgent that we
obtain a more detailed..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "The paper
demonstrated that one could design
and fabricate optical fibers with
properties which had previously
been unobtainable. We proved
experimentally that a very simple
model of the fibers gave reliable
predictions of their properties.
The paper had a big impact because
it showed that very simple
physics..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper is
focused on the description of
excited state properties, by
further developing and uniting two
different previously existing
theoretical approaches. Namely, we
have established the bridge between
Many-Body Perturbation Theory
(MBPT) and Time-Dependent Density
Functional Theory (TDDFT) to
calculate the..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "...our study
represents one of the first
genome-wide association study
(GWAS) in patients with
rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The
second is that two independent
alleles at a single locus
(6q23/TNFAIP3) were identified that
contribute to risk of one disease,
in this case, RA. This is an
emerging theme in genetic studies.
Third, we investigated...."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "Our paper
recognized that the development of
sustainable, secure, and
environmentally compatible energy
generation would become the
research challenge for our
generation. Furthermore, the scope
and breadth of this global
challenge required a
multidisciplinary approach focused
on creating a sustainable world in
which energy..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper was a
comparative study of aging in fish
derived from natural populations
that experience differences in
mortality rate. I looked at
populations that either do or do
not live with predators and have
shown in earlier work that those
that live with predators suffer
higher mortality rates.
Evolutionary theory predicts that
they..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "This paper
provides the first conclusive
genetic and biochemical evidence
that a specific
Arabidopsis hexokinase
(HXK1) acts as glucose sensor and
integrates nutrient, light, and
hormonal signaling to modulate
plant growth, a fundamental problem
linked to many areas of plant
research...."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "...previous method
described in Nature in
2000, we solve the structure with
the help of gas adsorption data,
therefore we can solve only after
the surfactant is removed. Now we
have proposed a way to solve the
structure and to provide pore
volume and surface area with the
surfactant intact. That means we
can solve it in its..."
View Article
This month,
ScienceWatch.com presents
a listing of the top 20
institutions which attracted the
highest total citations to their
papers published in Thomson
Reuters-indexed Computer Science
journals. These institutions are
the top 20 out of a pool of 321
institutions comprising the top 1%
ranked by total citation count in
this field.
View Article
ScienceWatch.compresents
a listing of the top 20 Highly
Cited Papers in the field of
Environment & Ecology, as of
the third bimonthly update ofEssential Science
Indicators (January 1,
1998-June 30, 2008). These papers
are the top 20 out of a pool of
2,358 papers comprising the top 1%
ranked by total citation count in
this
field.
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "...the microarray
allows us to measure the expression
of all the genes in the human
genome in a cell with one assay.
So, suppose I take 10 patients with
breast cancer and 10 normals, and
then take a sample of their breast
tissue and measure the expression
of all the genes in those breast
cells. My data then consists of
something..."
View Article
Excerpt from the
interview: "...I cloned the
GSK-3 genes in 1990 and within two
weeks of that publication two other
papers appeared from fly
geneticists who'd cloned a key gene
involved in developmental
patterning. The sequence showed
their gene was GSK-3. That was our
first clue that there was more to
this kinase..."
View Article
(Additional
interviews/commentaries will be
added during October 2008)