Clarivate Analytics Reveals Annual Forecast of Future Nobel Prize Recipients

Names 17 New Citation Laureates from USA, EU, Asia

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to enable researchers to accelerate discovery, today named 17 world-class researchers as Citation Laureates - researchers whose work is deemed to be, 'of Nobel stature', as attested by markedly high citation tallies recorded in the Web of Science citation index.

Each year since 2002, analysts at Clarivate Analytics have drawn on Web of Science publication and citation data to identify influential researchers in the research areas recognized by Nobel Prizes: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics. Again this year, individuals whose research reports have been cited at high frequency - typically in the top .01% - and whose contributions to science has been transformative, even revolutionary, have been selected to join the hall of Citation Laureates.

On October 1st, 2018, the Nobel Assembly will vote to confer sciences' highest honor and whilst this annual rite inspires worldwide speculation, Clarivate Analytics is the only organization to use quantitative data to make annual forecasts of potential Nobel Prize recipients. To date, 46 Citation Laureates have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize, 27 within two years of being listed.

Authors of extremely highly cited papers (to be cited 2,000 times or more is a rarity indeed) are usually members of their national academies of sciences, hold high appointments in universities and other research institutes, or have received many top international prizes in their fields. They often go on to receive Nobel honors. While peer review remains the principal method to recognize research excellence, a parallel approach of appraising the citation record often provides important corroborating evidence to supplement peer review.

This year 11 of the 17 honorees are based at leading North American academic institutions; others come from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and South Korea. Two of the 17 are women.

The 2018 Citation Laureates are:

Physiology or Medicine

Napoleone Ferrara, University of California, San Diego, CA, for the discovery of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a key regulator of angiogenesis, the process in which new blood vessels are formed, both in healthy tissue and in cancerous cells. Ferrera's work has led to the development of drugs that inhibit blood-vessel growth in cancer and in blinding eye disorders such as age-related macular degeneration.