Highly cited publications
• Original research papers with over 200 citations in last 10 years
• Work undertaken in the Conway Institute
• PI is a Conway fellow and senior or first author
| Total Cites | Published | Journal | Authors | Article |
| 389 | 2008 | Proceedings of the National Academy Of Sciences | Lundqvist, M et al | Nanoparticle size and surface properties determine the protein corona with possible implications for biological impacts |
| 331 | 2003 | Journal of Experimental Medicine | Leng L et al | MIF signal transduction initiated by binding to CD74 |
| 275 | 2006 | Journal of Physiology-London | Townsend M et al | Effects of secreted oligomers of amyloid beta-protein on hippocampal synaptic plasticity: a potent role for trimers |
| 253 | 2007 | Nature Biotechnology | Taylor, CF et al | The minimum information about a proteomics experiment (MIAPE) |
| 250 | 2006 | Nature Genetics | Greenway MJ | ANG mutations segregate with familial and sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis |
| 236 | 2006 | Science | Meyer-Luehmann, M et al | Exogenous induction of cerebral beta-amyloidogenesis is governed by agent and host0 |
| 217 | 2007 | Nucleic Acids Research | Dolinsky, TJ et al | PDB2PQR: expanding and upgrading automated preparation of biomolecular structures for molecular simulations |
| 215 | 2005 | Circulation | Ryan S et al | Selective activation of inflammatory pathways by intermittent hypoxia in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome |
| 210 | 2006 | Proceedings of the National Academy Of Sciences | Cummins, EP et al | Prolyl hydroxylase-1 negatively regulates I kappa B kinase-beta, giving insight into hypoxia-induced NF kappa B activity |
In science, as in society, success is often measured by how often people are talking about or referring to your work. Over the last 10 years, Conway Fellows have produced a number of publications that are highly cited or referenced. More than 80 scientific publications by Conway researchers have been cited over 100 times. These highly cited studies have emerged from across the full range of scientific areas and reflect the world-class research taking place. Prof Des Higgins has over 100,000 total citations; making him the most cited Irish, and one of the most cited researchers in the world, for his work on DNA sequence comparisons.
Clustal Omega: the ultimate alignment programme?
How would you compare the sequence of a histone protein across 10,000 different species? Until recently the question was partly an abstract one because the technology for generating sequences was slow and expensive.
Modern approaches to aligning very large numbers of sequences have been hitting a bottleneck when facing such large data sets. They are either fast yet generate unacceptably poor quality alignments or they are accurate yet prohibitively intensive of computing power.
Prof Des Higgins and his collaborators in Europe, Asia and the USA addressed these issues using Clustal Omega, an improved multiple alignment programme.
Clustal Omega can align virtually any number of protein sequences quickly and delivers accurate alignments. One novel aspect is the use of vectors to reduce the complexity of a key step in the algorithm, dramatically reducing the processing time. Currently, the programme is designed to align protein sequences (not nucleic acids) but can run on a personal computer or over a server.
Prof Higgins is a biologist by training whose initial research necessitated the use of computers. He needed to be able to make comparisons between DNA sequences; cataloguing similarities and differences.
He was one of the authors of the original Clustal programme used to align protein sequences that was innovatively designed to work on personal computers, greatly increased its use among scientists.
He and his research team in UCD Conway have continued to make improvements to the programme with the second version released in 2007 and the latest version, Clustal Omega, released in November 2011. The programme is now used in molecular biology laboratories worldwide.
May 2013
Prof Des Higgins breaks the 100,000 mark for total citations.January 2011
Analysis of publications in the field of molecular genetics & genomics from 1997-2008 names the original journal article on Clustal X as the most cited paper and its author, Prof Des Higgins as the 4th most cited author.December 2008
Clustel W and Clustal X version 2: Fastest breaking paper in computer science due to number of citations.November 2007
Larkin MA et al. Clustal W and Clustal X version 2.0 Bioinformatics. 2007 Nov 1;23(21):2947-8. Epub 2007 Sep 10. PMID: 17846036Investing in your future:
