Well, everyone, it’s time for the February issue of Nature Chemical Biology, available at news-stands everywhere. And with Valentine’s Day just around the corner (at least according to stores hawking oodles of heart-shaped merchandise), I thought it would be an appropriate time for a little poem in your honor. Thus the title. To figure out my little jokes, you’ll have to check out the issue.

If you’ve been reading for the past few months, you’ll have seen examples of our Elements pieces, which first started last June. These one-page articles profile important people, places, and events within the field of chemical biology, and aim to provide food for thought on some of the important issues of the day or just a glimpse into the psyche of notable scientists. Coming up with names or topics to write about may not be a far cry from putting famous scientists into Wikipedia, like this (see Josh’s discussion on this), but it does occur at a much slower rate, with only 12 candidates per year. Who or what do you think should be featured in an Elements? What should the rationale be for who gets picked next? Let me know; otherwise, I may have to reevaluate whether you’re as sweet as isofagamine, and no one wants that…

Catherine

Catherine Goodman (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)

Local researchers make their mark in molecular biology, cancer, neuroscience, and medicine as shown by these publication and citation data.

Research by Caitlin Stier

One way to paint a picture of Boston science is to look at who’s publishing the most in what kinds of journals, and which papers are most cited. We’ve pulled together data from Thomson Scientific’s citation database to create the following three lists:

Top cited 2005 papers from Boston labs

Researchers in the Boston area had 30,270 papers published in 2005. The following papers are the top cited ones whose corresponding authors are based in the Boston area.

1. Barrett, J.C., Fry, B., Maller, J. & Daly, M.J. Haploview: analysis and visualization of LD and haplotype maps. Bioinformatics 21, 263-265.

Citations: 417

2. Altshuler, D. et al. A haplotype map of the human genome. Nature 437, 1299-1320. (Review)

Citations: 380

3. Ridker, P.M. et al. C-reactive protein levels and outcomes after statin therapy. New England Journal of Medicine 352, 20-28.

Citations: 331

4. Solomon, S.D. et al. Cardiovascular risk associated with celecoxib in a clinical trial for colorectal adenoma prevention. New England Journal of Medicine 352, 1071-1080.

Citations: 330

5. Lewis, B.P., Burge, C.B. & Bartel, D.P. Conserved seed pairing, often flanked by adenosines, indicates that thousands of human genes are microRNA targets. Cell 120, 15-20.

Citations: 229

6. Levine, R.L. et al. Activating mutation in the tyrosine kinase JAK2 in polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia, and myeloid metaplasia with myelofibrosis. Cancer Cell 7, 387-397.

Citations: 217

7. Sarbassov, D.D., Guertin, D.A., Ali, S.M. & Sabatini, D.M. Phosphorylation and regulation of Akt/PKB by the rictor-mTOR complex. Science 307, 1098-1101.

Citations: 200

8. Kobayashi, S. et al. EGFR mutation and resistance of non-small-cell lung cancer to gefitinib. New England Journal of Medicine 352, 786-792.

Citations: 196

9. Xie, X.H. et al. Systematic discovery of regulatory motifs in human promoters and 3 ’ UTRs by comparison of several mammals. Nature 434, 338-345.

Citations: 179

10. Lu, J. et al. MicroRNA expression profiles classify human cancers. Nature 435, 834-838.

Citations: 173

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Top subject categories for 2006 papers with Boston authors

_ Thomson Scientific categorizes its indexed journals by subject. This list shows the journal subject categories and the number of papers with Boston-area authors published by the journals in each category. Boston researchers had a total of 27,260 papers published in 2006._

1. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: 1,885

2. Neurosciences: 1,263

3. Oncology: 1,155

4. Cell Biology: 1,090

5. Immunology: 1,017

6. Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems: 937

7. Astronomy and Astrophysics: 837

8. Clinical Neurology: 730

9. General and Internal Medicine: 717

10. Surgery: 692

11. Psychiatry: 676

12. Chemistry, Multidisciplinary: 668

13. Multidisciplinary Sciences: 662 (see note below)

14. Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging: 617

15. Public, Environmental and Occupational Health: 613

16. Hematology: 593

17. Pharmacology and Pharmacy: 592

18. Electrical and Electronic Engineering: 575

19. Peripheral Vascular Disease: 528

20. Applied Physics: 528

Note: “Multidisciplinary Sciences” includes journals that span different disciplines such as Nature and Science.

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Top publishing Boston institutions in 2006

Institutions are ranked by the number of papers authored by their researchers. Boston researchers had a total of 27,260 papers published in 2006.

1. Harvard: 10,236

2. MIT: 3,703

3. Massachusetts General Hospital: 2,537

4. Boston University: 2,504

5. Brigham & Women’s Hospital: 2,234

6. Tufts University: 1,488

7. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: 878

8. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: 822

9. Children’s Hospital: 792

10. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: 571

11. University of Massachusetts: 528

12. Northeastern University: 510

Note: For all three lists, papers were selected using the zip codes of authors beginning with 019, 020, 021, 022, 023 and 024.

Source:

Thomson Scientific’s ISI Web of Science citation database. Based on data as of January 3, 2007.

See related Editor’s blog post about peer review.