Twelve current investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University are on this year’s list of scientists whose papers have been cited the most frequently by other researchers.
They are among 6,849 “highly cited researchers” around the world whose publications rank in the top 1% by citations for field of research and publication year in the Web of Science citation index over the past decade, according to the global analytics firm Clarivate, which compiled and released the 2023 list on Nov. 15.
Among the VUMC investigators are Mark Denison, MD, and his longtime senior research specialist and colleague Xiaotao Lu, MS, who together have made significant contributions to understanding the biology of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.
A recipient of VUMC’s Edward E. Price Jr. Research Staff Award for Excellence in Basic Research, Lu has co-authored 38 papers with Denison since she began working with him in 1992, including two high-profile reports in 2020 demonstrating the efficacy of an antiviral drug and a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2.
Denison, who holds the Edward Claiborne Stahlman Chair in Pediatric Physiology and Cell Metabolism at VUMC, said Lu’s “exceptional research results and fingerprints are on all of the work and training that we do. She is lauded by every person who has passed through our program.
“The quality, continuity, and collegiality of staff scientists like Xiaotao Lu are absolutely essential for our scientific progress,” he said.
