We’re coming up on Nobel Prize announcement season next week and that means the betting, or at least speculation, is on for who will be the award recipients. Thomson Reuters has some ideas on the subject spanning each category. It sees DNA methylation and gene expression in the growing field of epigenetics as well as the work behind Herceptin as the potential darlings of the medicine field this year.
Its predictions are outlined in its annual Citation Laureates study. It identifies the most influential researchers in the categories of chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, and economics based on data mining information from its Web of Science database.
Methylation works as an “off” switch for genes to ensure that liver cells only get instructions for genes a liver cell uses, for example, but prevents nerve cells from getting access to instructions for genes that a liver cell uses.
It picked Adrian P. Bird and Howard Cedar of Hebrew University were the first to discover how the switching worked, according to the media company’s website. Aharon Razin of the University of Edinburgh, also studied methylation and concluded that it had implications for genetic disorders such as Rett Syndrome.
One of the other groups Reuters highlighted is Dennis Slamon of the University of California Los Angeles and his team’s study of the HER-2 protein and its pioneering work with Herceptin to develop new insights on breast cancer treatment and important findings to advance personalized medicine.
It also focused on a tea, of researchers study of the mechanisms behind autophagy — the process of a cell breakdown — through the work of Daniel Klionsky of University of Michigan, Noboru Mizushima of University of Tokyo, and Yoshinori Ohsumi of Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Since Reuters ushered in its Nobel Prize analytics feature it’s accurately predicted 27 winners since 2002, according to its website.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
