Indians unlikely on this year’s Nobel list

With just two weeks until the recipients of some of the world?s most coveted research prizes are named, information company Thomson Reuters released a list of researchers who are most likely to bag the Nobels this year and sadly no one from India figures on the same.

Each year, Thomson Reuters uses data from its research solution, Web of Knowledge, to quantitatively determine the most influential researchers in Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics categories of the Nobel prizes and names them Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates.

?We choose our Citation Laureates by assessing citation counts and the number of high-impact papers while identifying discoveries or themes that may be considered worthy of recognition by the Nobel Committee,” said David Pendlebury, Citation Analyst, Research Services, Thomson Reuters.

The Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates typically rank among the top one-tenth of one per cent of researchers in their fields, based on citations of their published papers over the last two decades.

This year, 15 of the 21 Citation Laureates hail from American universities; researchers from France, Japan, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom also appear among the 2010 picks.

In Chemistry, Patrick O Brown, a professor from the Stanford University School of Medicine, USA, was selected for the invention and application of DNA microarrays, a revolutionary tool in the study of variation in gene expression.

In the same category Susumu Kitagawa from the Kyoto University, Japan and Omar M Yaghi from the University of California, USA were cited for the design and development of porous metal-organic frameworks, whose applications include hydrogen and methane storage, gas purification, and gas separation, among others.

In Physics, Charles L Bennett, from the Johns Hopkins University, USA; Lyman A Page and David N Spergel of Princeton University, USA were listed for discoveries deriving from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), including the age of the universe, its topography, and its composition.

Also, Thomas W Ebbesen from the University of Strasbourg, France was also listed in Physics for observation and explanation of the transmission of light through subwavelength holes, which ignited the field of surface plasmon photonics.

Saul Perlmutter from the University of California, Berkeley USA; Adam G Riess of Johns Hopkins University, USA and Brian P Schmidt from the Australian National University, Australia were also chose in Physics for discoveries of the accelerating rate of the expansion of the universe, and its implications for the existence of dark energy.

In Physiology or Medicine, Douglas L Coleman of Jackson Laboratory, Maine, USA and Jeffrey M Friedman of Rockefeller University, USA were cited for the discovery of leptin, a hormone regulating appetite and metabolism.

Also, Ernest A McCulloch and James E Till, from the Ontario Cancer Institute, Canada; along with Shinya Yamanaka from the Kyoto University, Japan were listed in the same category for the discovery of stem cells and the development of induced pluripotent stem cells.

In the same category, Ralph M Steinman from Rockefeller University, USA was also named for the discovery of dendritic cells, key regulators of immune response.

In Economics, Albert Alesina from the Harvard University, USA was named for the theoretical and empirical studies on the relationship between politics and macroeconomics, and specifically for research on politico-economic cycles.

Nobuhiro Kiyotaki from the Princeton University, USA and John H Moore from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland were also cited for formulation of the Kiyotaki-Moore model, which describes how small shocks to an economy may lead to a cycle of lower output resulting from a decline in collateral values that create a restrictive credit environment.

Also, Kevin M Murphy from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA was listed for pioneering empirical research in social economics, including wage inequality and labor demand, unemployment, addiction, and the economic return on investment in medical research among other topics.