Thomson Reuters Predicts 2016 Nobel Prize Winners

Here at Bio-Techne we always look forward to the annual announcements of winners of the highly coveted Nobel Prize – the greatest award in science. How can you go about predicting which scientists might be in line for a life-changing phone-call from the Nobel Committee?

Well, looking at citations is one possible approach.

Thomson Reuters analysts annually mine scientific citation data to identify the researchers whose work is worthy of Nobel recognition, and are responsible for the world's most influential scientific innovations. These are the scholars and innovators, whose papers typically rank in the top 0.1% by citations within their field. Many of these go on to win the Nobel Prize for their contributions towards the advancement of science.

The list of 2016 Citation Laureates has been released, prior to the announcement of Nobel Prize winners, beginning on 3 October. Thomson Reuters has had a degree of success in predicting which scientists have a good chance of winning using data from the Web of Science™. These scientists are then added to their elite 'Hall of Citation Laureates'.

In the category of Physiology or Medicine, the following Citation Laureates were named for their ground-breaking scientific discoveries:

For explaining how CD28 and CTLA-4 are regulators of T cell activation, modulating immune response.

• James P. Allison –  M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA
• Jeffrey A. Bluestone – UCSF, San Francisco, USA
• Craig B. Thompson – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA

For elucidating programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and its pathway, which has advanced cancer immunotherapy.

• Gordon J. Freeman – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
• Tasuku Honjo – Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
• Arlene H. Sharpe – Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, USA

For discoveries of the growth regulator Target of Rapamycin (TOR) and the mechanistic Target of Rapamycin (mTOR).

• Michael N. Hall - University of Basel, Switzerland
• David M. Sabatini – MIT and Broad Institute, Cambridge, USA
• Stuart L. Schreiber – Broad Institute and Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

In the category of Chemistry, the following Citation Laureates were named:

For application of CRISPR-cas9 gene editing in mouse and human cells.

• George M. Church – Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
• Feng Zhang – MIT and Broad Institute, Cambridge, USA

For detecting cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma, a revolution in non-invasive prenatal testing.

• Dennis Lo Yuk Ming – Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

For discovering the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect of macromolecular drugs, a key finding for cancer therapeutics.

• Hiroshi Maeda – Sojo University, Kumamoto, Japan
• Yasuhiro Matsumura –  National Cancer Center, Tokyo, Japan

We at Bio-Techne send our congratulations to all the selected Citation Laureates for their fantastic scientific achievements, which are already profoundly transforming research and revolutionizing healthcare. They are all deserved Nobel Prize winners.

For more information on this year's Citation Laureates, visit the website: http://stateofinnovation.thomsonreuters.com/2016-citation-laureates

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