ccording to Essential Science IndicatorsSM for
the period between January 1, 1996 and December 31, 2006, the
top-ranked institution by number of citations over all fields is
Harvard University, with 91,124 papers cited a total
of
2,519,285 times to date. Harvard also holds the #1 position by total
citations in the most fields, with nine #1 slots across the
database’s 22 fields.
The fields in which Harvard ranks at #1 are as follows: Clinical
Medicine, Molecular Biology & Genetics, Biology & Biochemistry,
Neuroscience & Behavior, Immunology, Psychiatry & Psychology,
Microbiology, Social Sciences, and the Multidisciplinary field. In
four other fields—Economics & Business, Chemistry, Mathematics, and
Space Science—Harvard is ranked in the top 10. In Space Science,
Harvard shares this distinction with the Smithsonian, via the
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
In Clinical Medicine, not only is Harvard ranked #1 over other
institutions, but this is the field in which Harvard is currently
generating its highest number of citations, with 35,492 papers cited
a total of 904,586 times to date.
Harvard’s most-cited paper in Clinical Medicine is "The effect of
pravastatin on coronary events after myocardial infarction in
patients with average cholesterol levels," (Sacks FM, et al., N.
Engl. J. Med. 335[14]: 1001-9, 3 October 1996), with 3,444
citations to date. One of the authors of this paper is
Dr. Marc
Pfeffer, who talked with us about his work on the SAVE trial in
2001 and again about the
CHARM trial in 2005. Other highly cited topics in this field
include the classification of cancer through gene expression
monitoring, cardiovascular disease risk in men, chemokines, trends
in alternative medicine, angiogenesis, and the CLASS study on
gastrointestinal toxicity with celecoxib.
Molecular Biology & Genetics ranks second, with 7,928 papers
cited a total of 432,640 times to date. Angiogenesis and apoptosis
are the heavy-hitters for Harvard in this field: of the top 20
papers, more than half deal with one or both of these issues. Gene
sequencing is another highly cited topic in this field.
Last year, we talked with
Dr. Joseph Sodroski of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and
Harvard’s School of Public Health about his work on HIV. His
paper with colleagues Dr. Hyeryun Choe and others, "The beta-chemokine
receptors CCR3 and CCR5 facilitate infection by primary HIV-1
isolates," (Choe H, et al., Cell 85 [7]: 1135-48, 28 June
1996) is ranked at #9 in Harvard’s top 20 papers in this field, and
is among the 40 most-cited Molecular Biology & Genetics papers
overall.
Coming in at #3 in Harvard’s field rankings is Biology &
Biochemistry, with 8,845 papers cited a total of 320,065 times to
date. Highly cited papers in this field cover such diverse topics as
the neuroendocrine response to fasting, structure and function of
proteasomes, regulation of neuronal survival, DNA topoisomerases, NK-kappa
ß activation, and signal transduction. In our Special Topic on
Alzheimer's
disease, we interviewed
Dr. Dennis Selkoe of the Brigham & Women’s Hospital at Harvard
Medical School, and his review, "Alzheimer’s disease: genes,
proteins, and therapy," (Physiol. Rev. 81[2]: 741-66, April
2001), ranks at #6, with 1,078 citations to date.
Neuroscience & Behavior ranks at #4 in Harvard’s citation record,
with 6,019 papers cited a total of 199,460 times to date. Several
papers by Dr. Selkoe and his colleagues appear in this field as
well. We spoke with
Dr. Dominic Walsh about their paper, "Naturally secreted
oligomers of amyloid beta protein potently inhibit hippocampal
long-term potentiation in vivo," (Walsh DM, et al., Nature
416[6880]: 535-9, 4 April 2002), when it was named a Fast-Breaking
Paper; it is now ranked at #6 in this field with 602 citations.
Other topics included in this field are face perception, excitotoxicity and clearance of glutamate, apoptosis in the nervous
system, neuronal plasticity, ischemic stroke, neural development,
and a Drosophila model of
Parkinson’s
disease.
Rounding out the top 5 is Immunology, with 3,976 papers cited a
total of 139,977 times to date. Helper T lymphocytes, transcription
factors, control of viremia, host defense mechanisms, homeostasis,
and autoimmune disease mechanisms are all heavily cited topics in
this field.
Of the 69 Special
Topics analyses we have performed since July 2001, Harvard has
been included in the top institutions of 44 analyses, and has been
ranked #1 in 19 analyses, the most recent one being
Gene
Silencing, in December 2006.
Among the Harvard researchers we have been privileged to speak
with about their work in these topics are:
Dr. Lisa Randall, who spoke with both Special Topics and
Science Watch® about her
branes research;
Dr. Martha Shenton, who spoke with us about her work on
schizophrenia;
Dr. Walter Willett, who spoke with Special Topics about his
diabetes
research and with
Science Watch about risk-factor epidemiology; and
Dr. Cynthia Morton, who spoke with us about her work with
uterine
fibroids.
We have also spoken with
Dr. Charles Lieber about his work on
nanowires
and other areas of
nanoscale science;
Dr. George Whitesides about his career in nanomaterials research;
Dr. Robert Barro about his highly cited work in the field of
Economics & Business; and with
Dr.
Ronald Kessler about his highly cited papers in Psychiatry &
Psychology, a field in which he is currently ranked #1 out of the
2,109 scientists comprising the top 1%.
The full details of Harvard’s field rankings are given in the
table below.
cites
:
