The Director of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Professor Suzanne Cory, is one of the top ten Australian recipients of the 2008 Thomson Scientific Citation Awards announced at the National Press Club in Canberra.
Thomson Scientific, a US-based international information analysis company, states that “The ten Australian recipients…were selected using a quantitative process that identifies the average number of citations per paper their published research has had over a period of time. This, in turn, reflects its impact and influence on the given subject and the importance attached to it by subsequent research.”
As Thomson Scientific further notes, Professor Cory is “one of Australia’s most distinguished molecular biologists, who focuses on the regulation of cell death by the bcl-2 family, with the objective of developing more effective cancer treatments.”
Professor Cory’s nine relevant papers were cited 4,175 times in the decade to 2007, yielding an average citations per paper (CPP) of an extraordinary 463.89 – the highest CPP of all the 2008 award recipients.
The Thomson Scientific awards celebrate the achievements of individual scientists and of the broader Australian scientific community. Impressively, Australia is ranked among the top ten nations in the world for influence in scientific papers, despite the nation’s relatively small population base. This is one of the key facts in the characterisation of Australia as a country that “punches above its weight” in the international science arena.
Reflecting upon the citation award, Professor Cory said, “I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of the many insightful colleagues, postdoctoral fellows and students who have contributed to our BCL-2 consortium over the past twenty years. In particular, I would like to highlight the major contributions of Professor David Vaux, who made the initial breakthrough observation, and of Professor Andreas Strasser, Professor Jerry Adams, Dr David Huang and the late Dr Alan Harris, all of whom have contributed so much to our current understanding of how Bcl-2 and its relatives control the vital switch governing cell life and death. We are optimistic that this insight will contribute to the development of smarter and more effective cancer therapeutics.”