U.S. Institutions, Individuals Dominate Worldwide Genetics Research

Editor's Note: Although laboratories throughout the world are making steady research advances in the fields of molecular biology and genetics, perhaps no other realm of life sciences investigation is so heavily dominated by United States institutions and individuals. Among papers in these fields published between 1988 and 1992, 19 of the 25 highest-impact organizations--based on the average number of times their papers were cited by subsequent researchers--sprung from U.S. institutes, universi

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Editor's Note: Although laboratories throughout the world are making steady research advances in the fields of molecular biology and genetics, perhaps no other realm of life sciences investigation is so heavily dominated by United States institutions and individuals. Among papers in these fields published between 1988 and 1992, 19 of the 25 highest-impact organizations--based on the average number of times their papers were cited by subsequent researchers--sprung from U.S. institutes, universities, or corporations; meanwhile, of the top 25 cited scientists for this same period--ranked by citations per paper--21 were American, or associated principally with U.S. labs. The dramatic achievement and obvious influence of U.S. efforts in molecular biology and genetics were revealed by a study presented this past summer in the newsletter Science Watch (4[7]:1-2, July/August 1993), published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Philadelphia. Following is the newsletter's report, reprinted here with the permission of Science Watch and ...

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