Five current faculty members at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have made this year’s list of scientists whose papers have been cited most frequently by others.
The metric, developed by the global information giant Thomson Reuters, has become a prominent measure of a scientist’s influence on his or her field of endeavor.
This year 3,125 scientists made the “highly cited” list, earning them the mark of “exceptional impact,” according to Thomson Reuters. Their papers ranked among the top 1 percent most cited for their subject field and year of publication.
The researchers are
• P. Jeffrey Conn, Ph.D., the Lee E. Limbird Professor of Pharmacology and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD);
• Craig Lindsley, Ph.D., the William K. Warren Jr. Professor of Medicine, professor of Pharmacology, director of Medicinal Chemistry and co-director of the VCNDD;
• Xiao-Ou Shu, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, professor of Medicine;
• Thomas Wang, M.D., the Gottlieb C. Friesinger II Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Medicine, and director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine;
• Wei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, the Anne Potter Wilson Professor of Medicine, director of the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center and chief of the Division of Epidemiology.
Conn, Lindsley and their colleagues are pioneering development of compounds called allosteric modulators that can adjust the activity of receptors in the brain, and which could lead to new treatments for disorders as diverse as schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.
Shu and Zheng are internationally recognized for their large cohort studies in Shanghai, China, which have helped determine how genetic and dietary factors influence the risk of colorectal and other cancers, as well as heart disease.
Wang has made significant contributions to understanding the role of the natriuretic peptides in cardiovascular health, mechanisms of obesity-related cardiac dysfunction and the effects of vitamin D on the heart.
