Is there any way to predict who will be named Nobel Laureates this year?

Thomson ISI, the pioneer of citation indexing, has attempted to do so by naming its 2003 Citation Laureates, says Business Wire.

Citations are an acknowledgement of intellectual debt -- a direct demonstration of influence in a given subject area. Therefore, researchers who have accumulated such credits from their peers are also often nominated for prizes and other honors by these peers.

Eugene Garfield, founder and chairman emeritus, ISI, has studied the correlation between high citation frequency and receipt of prestigious prizes, especially the Nobel Prize.

The Thomson ISI Citation Laureates typically rank among the top one-tenth of one per cent of researchers in their field, based on citation counts to their published papers over the last two decades. They also have routinely written the most influential papers in specific fields of the sciences and social sciences. Their influence is based on the number of times other researchers have cited their works.

'The Nobel Prize has been awarded annually since 1901. In making selections, the Nobel Committee generally looks for an area of research in each category, and then identifies the key people responsible for the advancement in that field,' said David Pendlebury, Manager of Contract Research, Thomson ISI.

'Over the past 30 years, our studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between journal article citations and peer esteem, and this is reflected in professional awards, as well, like the Nobel Prize.'

In anticipation of the 2003 Nobel Prize announcements beginning on October 6, the following is the list of the 2003 Thomson ISI Citation Laureates:

1. Physiology or Medicine (to be announced on Monday, October 6)

Alfred G Knudson Jr

Senior Advisor to the President and Fox Distinguished Scientist, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

and

Bert Vogelstein

Professor of Oncology and Pathology with a Joint Appointment in Molecular Biology and Genetics, The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland; and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

and

Robert A Weinberg

Daniel K Ludwig and American Cancer Society Professor for Cancer Research, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Member Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

For their discovery and elucidation of the role of tumor suppressor genes in oncogenesis.

OR

Sir Michael J Berridge

Deputy Scientific Director and Head, Molecular Signaling, The Babraham Institute, Babraham, Cambridge, United Kingdom, Honorary Professor of Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

and

Yasutomi Nishizuka

President Emeritus of Kobe University, Former Professor and Chairman, Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.

For breakthrough contributions in cell signaling that revealed two fundamental biochemical processes - Berridge for research on the second messenger inositol trisphophate and Nishizuka for the discovery and analysis of the protein kinase C.

OR

Francis S Collins

Director, National Human Genome Research Institute, Senior Investigator, Genome Technology Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

and

Eric S Lander

Professor of Biology, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Director of the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research, Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

and

J Craig Venter

President, The Center for Advancement of Genomics, Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, and Venter Science Foundation Rockville, Maryland.

For their contributions to mapping the human genome.

2. Physics (to be announced on Tuesday, October 7)

Shuji Nakamura

Professor, Materials Department, Director of the Center for Solid State Lighting and Displays, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California.

For his invention of the blue laser and blue, green and white light-emitting diodes (LEDs), through the use of gallium nitride based semiconductors -- a great leap forward in data storage technology, lighting devices and other realms.

OR

Yoshinori Tokura

Professor, Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.

For his outstanding research in correlated-electron oxide materials, including discoveries in superconducting compounds and for work on the phenomenon of giant magnetoresistance.

OR

Michael B Green

John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Theoretical Physics, Theoretical High Energy Particle Physics Group, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

and

John H Schwartz

Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics, Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California.

and

Edward Witten

Charles Simonyi Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.

For their contributions in string theory and M theory.

3. Chemistry (to be announced on Wednesday, October 8)

J Fraser Stoddart

Saul Winstein Professor of Organic Chemistry, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.

and

George M Whitesides

Mallinckrodt Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

and

Seiji Shinkai

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Kyushu University, Graduate School of Engineering, Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan.

For their pioneering research in molecular self-assembly, which promises great advances in the fabrication of nanoscale machinery and microelectronics.

OR

K C Nicolaou

Chairman, Department of Chemistry, Aline W. and L.S. Skaggs Professor in Chemical Biology and Darlene Shiley Chair in Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California; and Professor of Chemistry, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California.

For his research in organic and natural product synthesis, especially for achieving the total synthesis of Taxol in 1994 and vancomycin in 1998-1999.

OR

Robert H Grubbs

Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California.

For his breakthrough research in the design and synthesis of complexes with useful catalytic actions, especially in polymerization (the creation of so-called living polymers).

4. Economics (to be announced on Wednesday, October 8)

Eugene F Fama

Robert R McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

and

Kenneth R French

Carl E. and Catherine M. Heidt Professor of Finance, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

For their seminal contributions to understanding the relationship of stock returns and business fluctuations.

OR

Robert J Barro

Robert C Waggoner Professor of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California.

For his pioneering contributions in empirical macroeconomics, ranging over many fields, but especially for work in public debt in the 1970s.

OR

Clive W J Granger

Department of Economics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California.

-and-

Robert F Engle

Michael Armellino Professor in the Management of Financial Services, New York University Stern School of Business, New York, NY.

For their development of co-integration analysis, an essential technique of econometrics for time-series studies and forecasting.

South African John Maxwell Coetzee 'who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider' won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, October 2.

The Nobel Prize for Peace will be announced on Friday, October 10.

To select the 2003 Thomson ISI Citation Laureates, ISI examined total citation counts and the number of high-impact papers in each of the major Nobel fields, says Business Wire. Thomson ISI applied these data to categories within those fields that it considered worthy of special recognition by the Nobel Committee.

Based on these criteria, three possible winners were selected in each of the four fields.