Five
Emory Health Sciences Faculty Recognized As Most Highly Cited Researchers
Worldwide
The Institute
for Scientific Information (ISI) has identified five Emory faculty members
within the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center as among the world's
most highly cited scientific researchers worldwide.
The five Emory scholars are
Mahlon R. DeLong, M.D., professor of neurology; Michael J. Kuhar, Ph.D.,
Charles Howard Candler professor of pharmacology and Georgia Research
Alliance Eminent Scholar; Kenneth P. Minneman, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology;
Bruce H. Wainer, M.D., professor of pathology and laboratory medicine;
and Allan I. Levey, M.D., Ph.D, professor of neurology.
The researchers are included
in ISIHighlyCited.com. This new web-based research resource brings together
the publication and achievement records of preeminent researchers. ISI
identified and evaluated approximately 19 million articles or source
records by 24,000 authors in 101 countries between 1981 and 1999 to
determine the most highly cited researchers in their respective disciplines.
Researchers were selected for inclusion in the ISI web database based
on the total number of citations to their publications within a given
category a quantifiable demonstration of their impact or influence.
Of the hundreds of thousands of articles published in research journals
every year, most contain lists of citations, or references, which are
authors' acknowledgments of their debt to the published research findings
of others. The researchers selected by ISI as "highly cited" comprise
less than one half of one percent of the almost five million researchers
in the ISI Citation Database.
Visitors to the web site
(http://www.ISIHighlyCited.com)
are able to identify key individuals, departments and laboratories that
have made essential contributions to the development of science and
technology in recent decades.
Four of the Emory scientists
Drs. DeLong, Kuhar, Levey, and Wainer, were included in the category
of neuroscience, which listed 110 highly cited scientists in 185 countries.
Dr. Minneman was one of 108 highly cited scientists worldwide in the
pharmacology category.
- Mahlon DeLong has been
described as one of the most important basic science researchers in
Parkinson's disease in the past decade. At Emory, he heads one of
the nation's largest and most distinguished groups of investigators
studying Parkinson's and related neurological diseases. Emory's Parkinson's
Disease Research Center of Excellence one of three in the nation
was awarded a grant of $7.5 from the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) in 1999. Dr. DeLong also directs Emory's NIH-supported
Center for Research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)
in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Dr. DeLong's research in the 1990s
led to a new understanding of the mechanisms of Parkinson's disease
and opened the door to a revival of pallidotomy a surgical technique
that uses radio frequency waves to destroy small groups of cells in
the brain as a way of controlling the symptoms of Parkinson's. His
development of a microelectrode brain mapping system allowed the targeting
of specific brain cells. His finding that the subthalamic nucleus
is a key brain structure in Parkinson's led to the development of
additional innovative approaches, including deep-brain stimulation,
a less-invasive way of moderating the symptoms of Parkinson's.
- Michael Kuhar is one
of the world's leading neuroscientists in the study of addiction.
His research focuses on the biochemical and physiological mechanisms
of drug abuse and the development of novel medications to treat addiction,
specifically cocaine addiction, for which no medication exists. Dr.
Kuhar is chief of the Division of Neuroscience at Emory's Yerkes Regional
Primate Research Center. He and his colleagues discovered the exact
mechanism by which cocaine disrupts the brain's levels of dopamine,
a chemical that helps brain cells communicate. This important finding
directed scientists to focus on restoring normal dopamine system function
in drug abusers.
- Allan Levey is internationally
recognized for his pioneering research into the chemical, molecular
and pharmacologic organization of brain systems vulnerable in Parkinson's
disease and Alzheimer's disease. His work has contributed to understanding
the brain systems involved in neurodegenerative disorders and in identifying
molecular targets for new therapeutic strategies. Dr. Levey is director
of the Emory-Morehouse Alzheimer's Disease Center and the Emory Neurodegenerative
Disease Center. He has been honored with the American Neurological
Association Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award and the National
Parkinson Foundation Heikkila Research Scholar Award.
- Bruce Wainer is professor
of pathology and neurology at Emory University School of Medicine
and chief of pathology at Wesley Woods Geriatric Center, which is
part of Emory Healthcare. He also holds the Alice and Roy Richards
endowed Chair of Alzheimer's Research. Dr. Wainer's laboratory was
the first to develop monoclonal antibodies to study systems in the
brain called cholinergic neuronal systems, which are vulnerable in
Alzheimer's disease. His laboratory also pioneered techniques to immortalize
brain cells, establishing permanent cell lines that can be used to
study signaling pathways and genetic mechanisms that control neuronal
development, differentiation and survival.
- Kenneth Minneman was
appointed Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pharmacology at Emory
University in 2000. Since he joined the Emory faculty in 1980, Dr.
Minneman has been funded continuously by the NIH for his research
on adrenergic receptors - a key component of signaling mechanisms
in the brain. He has received the ASPET John Jacob Abel Award for
the most outstanding young pharmacologist and the PhRMA Foundation
Award in Excellence for Basic Pharmacology. Dr Minneman has served
on both the Pharmacology and the Cardiovascular Renal Study Sections
of the NIH and as Chairman of the Molecular Signaling Study Committee
of the American Heart Association. He has served as Associate Editor
for Molecular Pharmacology, The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics, and Pharmacological Reviews and Communications.
He is currently a member of the Executive Council of the American
Society for Pharmacology.
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