The "hottest" researcher of 2009

Jaenisch’s current research focuses on optimizing the creation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells for potential therapeutic treatments for Parkinson’s disease, sickle-cell anemia, and other diseases. In November 2009, BioTechniques published aninterview with Jaenisch, in which he discussed pivotal moments in his career and the necessity of risk-taking in research.

The same month, Jaenisch’s team determined limiting factors in the iPS cell creation and discovered a novel way to reduce the time to create iPS cells by half. In December, Jaenisch’s team developed a method using a novel reprogramming cassette for iPS cell creation, which avoids the gene interference issues associated with retroviral delivery of reprogramming genes.

“Our annual roundup of researchers who have authored multiple hot papers allows us to recognize those who are leading scientific thought,” said Christopher King, editor of Science Watch, in the press release. “It is exciting to see several researchers make first-time appearances on the list.”

The runner-up on the list was Mark J. Daly from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. His research on genetic mapping and genome-wide association studies produced 13 hot papers. Several of these papers were coauthored with Broad Institute and Harvard colleagues David Altshuler and Paul I.W. de Bakker, and Goncalo Abecasis from the University of Michigan. All three are making their debut on the annual list of hot researchers.

Other researchers recognized included:

• Physicists Andre K. Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from Manchester University for their studies on grapheme, the two-dimensional form of carbon;
• Biologist Shizuo Akira of Osaka University with nine papers that explore toll-like receptors;
• Geneticist Carlo M. Croce from Ohio State University with 12 reports on microRNA and its function in colon cancer, leukemia, and other diseases;
• Theoretical physicist Mikhail Katsnelson of Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, with nine papers on condensed matter; and
• Computer scientist Ji-Huan He of Donghua University in Shanghai, China with 10 papers on the variational iteration of method.

Thomas Reuters defines a hot paper as a research report that is less than two years old and has attained a rate of citations in scientific journals that is distinctly higher than papers of similar form and age. Researchers cited on this list have published the most hot papers in the most recent two-year period that have been indexed by Thomson Reuters for inclusion in Web of Science.

The complete list of the hottest researchers and research papers can be found at ScienceWatch.com.