Whitehead Institute ranks among top in citations

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –Science Watch’s recent survey of high-impact papers in molecular biology and genetics ranked Whitehead Institute among the nation’s top for most highly cited papers—awarding the Institute fourth place for total number of citations and 11th place for number of citations per high-impact paper.  

The survey, conducted by Thompson Scientific and published in the January/February edition of Science Watch, surveyed high-impact papers that ranked among the top 1 percent for most-cited research in the field and were published between 2002 and 2006.   Whitehead Institute, with fewer than two dozen principal investigators, ranked extremely favorably against much larger scientific institutions.  Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard University and MIT topped the list for total number of citations.

Science Watch also ranked the high-impact papers by individual authors. Whitehead Member and Broad Institute Director Eric Lander led the list with 22 papers, followed by Whitehead Member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator David Bartel with 19 papers. Whitehead Member Richard Young was 12th with 10 papers.  (All Whitehead Members are also Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors.)  Additionally, Whitehead alumni researchers David Altshuler, Mark Daly and Phillip Zamore ranked within the top 20.

Eric Lander, who pioneered key tools and discoveries in modern mammalian genomics, studies how genomes function in health and disease. David Bartel is a leader in the discovery and study of microRNAs, which play important gene regulatory roles in both plants and animals.  Richard Young is a pioneer in gene transcription (the process by which cells read and interpret their DNA) and maps the regulatory circuitry of human cells.

“Citation-based rankings reflect the legitimacy of how research is viewed by the broader scientific community,” said Christopher King, editor of Science Watch.  “Citations represent the judgments scientists make in deciding whether published research is influential, significant and useful within a particular field. Whitehead’s high rankings prove that it is a place from which valuable research is produced.”

The findings were based on a sample of 1,300 highly cited molecular biology and genetics papers from a subset of reports collected in the Highly Cited Papers area of Thomson Scientific’s Essential Science Indicators database. 

Science Watch is a newsletter published by Thomson Scientific, whose Research Services Group quantitatively analyzes the scientific journal literature and provides science policymakers, research administrators, science journalists, and others with concise overviews of key developments in today's scientific research.