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Philip Cohen named as the world's most quoted Biochemist
Sir Philip Cohen, Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit and the SCottish Institute for ceLL Signalling (SCILLS) at the University of Dundee, was the world’s most cited biochemist over the past decade according to data provided by Thomson Reuters from its Essential Science Indicators. His 138 research publications were cited 10,378 times by other scientists in their research publications between January 1st 1999 and October 31st 2009.
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Commenting on the survey, Sir Philip said, “I first entered these scientific ‘pop charts’ many years ago when I was named as the world’s 126th most quoted scientist for papers published between the years of 1973 and 1984.
“It is gratifying to see that, so many years later, other biochemists around the world are still enjoying reading my papers and that they find them sufficiently important to be worth mentioning in their own publications.”
The survey listed the top 20 biochemists in the world in terms of citations per published paper. Arranged in this way, Sir Philip ranked 18th in the world, while his colleague Dario Alessi, the Deputy Director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit and an Honorary Programme Leader in SCILLS, was two places above him at 16th.
Dario Alessi’s 68 publications received an average of 78.04 citations per paper during the period, while Sir Philip’s 138 papers were cited an average of 75.20 times per paper.
There were two other UK-based scientists listed in the top 20, Chris Dobson of the University of Cambridge and Rolf Apweiler of the European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge. Eleven biochemists from the USA, two from Japan, two from Germany and one from Switzerland were the other nationalities represented in the top 20.
Citations are regarded as one of the measures of excellence in basic research because they indicate the extent to which other scientists recognise the quality of a research publication and use it in their own research.
University of Dundee