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HIGH PROFILE PUBLICATIONS
IN BIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY ON RISE AT UH
Department Chair Dryer Comments on Record Increase in Scientific
Paper Citations
HOUSTON, April 27, 2004 – Through teamwork and collaboration,
the University of Houston’s Department of Biology and Biochemistry
has produced an environment that has led to a record increase in
scientific paper citations.
According to a recent analysis released in early April of the ISI
Essential Science IndicatorsSM Web product, UH showed the highest
percent increase in total citations in the field of biology and
biochemistry, with 360 papers cited a total of 5,316 times.
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and research foundations.
In an interview with Stuart Dryer, chair of UH’s biology
and biochemistry department in the College of Natural Sciences and
Mathematics, this citation achievement is attributed to the department’s
faculty recruiting strategies in the past decade and the synergy
it creates.
“By recruiting faculty in our areas of strength, our department
has built up a critical mass in specific areas, enhancing our contributions
to the fields of biology and biochemistry,” Dryer said. “Until
the early 1990s, the department had been two separate departments
– biology and biochemistry – with distinct cultures
and different teaching loads. In merging the two, we recruited new
faculty at pretty much all levels, from junior to mid-level to senior
faculty, that built a distinct synergy created by finding people
who would work well together not just scientifically but even socially.
There’s an element here of people who are just excited to
get to work in the morning, because we like our colleagues.”
Dryer additionally asserts that just about everybody who came to
UH’s biology and biochemistry program got better after they
arrived and includes himself in that group. He adds that having
faculty increasingly publish papers in journals like Science, Nature
and Cell also makes a difference.
While interdisciplinary programs play a large role in UH’s
general research success, the citation power coming out of biology
and biochemistry is almost entirely internal to the department.
Operating on a philosophy that advocates teamwork and collaboration,
UH professors in this field treasure the fact that they will have
good colleagues right next door and that they will be working on
similar problems, but perhaps with different techniques. Five of
them, for instance, work on different aspects of circadian rhythms.
“Even within Houston, we have tremendous biomedical sciences,”
Dryer said. “We have three other major institutions within
the city – actually four if you include Galveston –
so we have to go after smart science, recruiting people focused
on fundamental biological questions and not so much on techniques.
“We’re trying to cast as big a net as possible with
broad faculty searches. That way, while you may be searching for
someone who’s working in one particular area, you sometimes
pull in someone with that broader net who’s totally different
but fits in perfectly doing something you never thought to search
for. It’s also a way to build both science and the diversity
of the faculty at UH.”
Continuing with the strategy of building to its strengths, UH’s
Department of Biology and Biochemistry is looking to even more intensely
focus on three particular areas in the future. The areas of molecular
microbiology and infectious disease, molecular neurobiology and
neurogenetics, and theoretical and experimental evolutionary biology
will be continually strengthened and expanded to the point where
their spheres begin to overlap.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan
research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research
centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with
corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse
research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education,
research and service with more than 35,000 students.
To receive UH science news via e-mail, visit http://www.uh.edu/admin/media/sciencelist.html.
For more information about UH visit the universitys Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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