With just two weeks until the recipients of some of the world’s most coveted research prizes are named, Thomson Reuters is releasing its picks for 2011 Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates – researchers likely to be in contention for Nobel honors.

Each year, Thomson Reuters uses data from its research solution, Web of Knowledge™, to quantitatively determine the most influential researchers in the Nobel categories of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics. Based on a thorough review of citations to their works, the company names these high-impact researchers as Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates and predicts them to be Nobel Prize winners, either this year or in the near future.  

Thomson Reuters is the only organization to use quantitative data to make annual predictions of Nobel Prize winners. Since 2002, 21 Citation Laureates have gone on to win Nobel Prizes.

“In the scientific community, citations, when analyzed and counted, can serve as another form of peer review,” said David Pendlebury, Citation Analyst, Research Services, Thomson Reuters.  "The more cited a scientist is, the more well-respected the author tends to be amongst his or her peers, which can be a predictor of awards like the Nobel Prize. Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates are chosen through a thoughtful assessment of citation counts and high-impact papers as well as consideration of discoveries or themes that the Nobel Committee may deem worthy of recognition.”

The Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates typically rank among the top one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of researchers in their fields, based on citations of their published papers over the last two or three decades. 

This year, 18 of the 24 Citation Laureates hail from American institutions; researchers from Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan also appear among the 2011 picks.

For detailed information about each of the Citation Laureates, including their areas of study, and to read about previously named Citation Laureates who are still in the running for a Nobel Prize, visit the Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates website at science.thomsonreuters.com/nobel/.

Up to the minute news on all things Nobel is available by following@nobelcitings on Twitter.com. Facebook users are also encouraged to submit their guesses for the 2011 Nobel Prize winners and contribute to general Nobel discussion on the Citation Laureates Facebook page, which replaces the previous Thomson Reuters online forum.

The 2011 Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates by Nobel Prize category are:

Chemistry

Allen J. Bard
Hackerman-Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry and Director of the Center for Electrochemistry, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX, USA

For the development and application of scanning electrochemical microscopy
 
Martin Karplus
Theodore William Richards Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA and Director, Laboratory of Biophysical Chemistry, ISIS, Louis Pasteur University, Strasbourg, France

For pioneering simulations of the molecular dynamics of biomolecules

Jean M. J. Fréchet
Professor of Chemistry and of Chemical Engineering and Henry Rapoport Chair of Organic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley CA USA, and Vice President of Research, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

-and-

Donald A. Tomalia
Distinguished Professor and Research Scientist, Department of Chemistry. and Director of the National Dendrimer and Nanotechnology Center, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI USA. Also, Chief Scientific Officer, Dendritic Nanotechnologies, Inc., Mount Pleasant, MI USA

-and-

Fritz Vogtle
Emeritus Professor, Kekulé Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn), Bonn Germany

For the invention and development of dendritic polymers
 

Economics

Douglas W. Diamond
Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL USA

For his analysis of financial intermediation and monitoring

 
Anne O. Krueger
Professor of International Economics, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC USA

-and-

Gordon Tullock
Professor Emeritus of Law and Economics, George Mason University School of Law, Arlington, VA USA

For their description of rent-seeking behavior and its implications

Jerry A. Hausman
John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA

-and-

Halbert L. White, Jr.
Chancellor’s Associates Distinguished Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA USA
For their contributions to econometrics, specifically the Hausman specification test and the White standard errors test 

Physics

Alain Aspect
CNRS Distinguished Scientist and Head of the Atom Optics Group, Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d’Optique, Palaiseau France. Also, Professor at the Institut d’Optique and at the Ecole Polytechnique France

-and-

John F. Clauser
Research Physicist, J.F. Clauser & Associates, Walnut Creek, CA USA

-and-

Anton Zeilinger
Full Professor of Experimental Physics, University of Vienna, and Scientific Director, Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna Austria

For their tests of Bell’s inequalities and research on quantum entanglement 

Sajeev John
University Professor of Physics and Canada Research Chair, Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario Canada

-and-

Eli Yablonovitch
Professor and James and Katherine Lau Chair in Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA

For their invention and development of photonic band gap materials

Hideo Ohno
Professor of the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics and Spintronics, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, and Director of the Center for Spintronics Integrated Systems, Tohoku University, Sendai Japan

For contributions to ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors

Physiology or Medicine

Brian J. Druker
Professor of Medicine, JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research, and Director, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland OR USA. Also, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator

-and-

Nicholas B. Lydon
Founder, Granite Biopharma, LLC, Jackson Hole, WY USA; Co-founder and Director, AnaptysBio, San Diego, CA USA; and Co-founder and Director, Blueprint Medicines, Cambridge, MA USA

-and-

Charles L. Sawyers
Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair in Human Oncology and Pathogenesis, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY USA. Also, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator

For their development of imatinib and dasatinib, revolutionary, targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia 

Robert S. Langer
David H. Koch Institute Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA

-and-

Joseph P. Vacanti
John Homans Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; Surgeon-in-Chief and Chief of the Department of Pediatric Surgery and Director of the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA USA

For their pioneering research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Jacques F. A. P. Miller
Emeritus Professor, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia

For his discovery of the function of the thymus and the identification of T cells and B cells in mammalian species

-with-

Robert L. Coffman
Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Dynavax Technologies, Berkeley, CA USA

-and-

Timothy R. Mosmann
Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Michael and Angela Pichichero Director in the David H. Smith Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology, University of Rochester Medical Center, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY USA

For their discovery of two types of T lymphocytes, TH1 and TH2, and their role in regulating host immune response

Source: http://thomsonreuters.com/content/press_room/science/2011-citation-laureates