The biomedical research all-stars recruited by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Chevy Chase, Maryland, have easily outpaced the competition in publishing prominent papers in molecular biology and genetics in recent years. A new analysis by the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia, which tracks scientific publishing, found that the roughly 300 HHMI-funded researchers--who work at numerous campuses--published papers that other researchers cited more than 76,000 times from 1994 to 1998. That's more than double the number of citations produced by runner-up Harvard University (see table).

The analysis also found that nine of the 17 most cited scientists were HHMI investigators. But the leader of the pack was cell signaling and gene transcription researcher Michael Karin of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Among journals, Cell published the most high-impact papers in molecular biology and genetics, 371; Nature and Science tied for second with 159 each.

--DAVID MALAKOFF

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MOST-CITED INSTITUTIONS AND RESEARCHERS IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND GENETICS, 1994-1998
Rank	Institution	No. citations
1	Howard Hughes Medical Institute	76,554
2	Harvard University	37,118
3	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	15,966
4	Johns Hopkins University	13,570
5	University of California, San Diego	12,942
6	Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center	11,551
7	Salk Institute	11,265
8	University of California, San Francisco	10,800
9	Yale University	10,682
10	Rockefeller University	9,981

Rank	Researcher	No. high-impact papers	No. citations
1	Michael Karin, UCSD	15	6677
2	Joan Massagu? HHMI/Sloan-Kettering	15	5402
3	John Reed, Burnham Institute	13	5268
4	Charles Sherr, HHMI/St. Jude Hosp.	12	5435
5	Ronald Evans, HHMI/Salk Institute	12	4646
6	David Goeddel, Tularik Inc.	12	3582
7	Kenneth Kinzler, Johns Hopkins	12	3047
	Bert Vogelstein, HHMI/Johns Hopkins	12	3047
8	David Beach, Inst. of Child Health	11	4451
9	Vishva Dixit, Genentech Inc.	10	4343
10	Stephen Elledge, HHMI/Baylor	9	3554