In the newest ranking from the journal, Laborjournal, Dr. Patrick Scheerer from the Institute of Medical Physics from the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin occupies leading positions. Two of the top ten most cited articles on protein research from scientists from German-speaking countries are from Patrick Scheerer.
Since 2012, Dr. Patrick Scheerer has been working on, among other activities, hydrogenases in UniCat’s research area E3, and analysing 3D-structures and protein interactions, with help, for example, from protein crystals that are measured by X-rays (protein X-ray crystallography). The biophysicist has been a working group leader at the Charité since 2012. He completed his doctorate under Prof. Klaus Peter Hofmann (Charité – University Medicine Berlin) and has published 35 articles since 2004, of which six appeared in the prestigious journal, Nature.
In May 2014, the journal, Laborjournal, with the databank, “Web of Science,” evaluated all articles from 2008 to 2012 from authors from German-speaking countries that were categorized under the topic of protein research.
Patrick Scheerer’s publication “Crystal structure of opsin in its G-protein-interacting conformation. Nature 455: 497-U30 (Sep 25, 2008)” was cited a total of 538 times on the recording date, 19 May 2014, and thereby reached 7th place in the citations ranking. Another publication by Patrick Scheerer that was cited 485 times, holds 9th place.
In both publications, Patrick Scheerer was able, together with the scientists from Prof. Hofmann’s working group, to explain the 3D crystal structure of the receptor protein rhodopsin with the help of an X-ray structural analysis in different states. Rhodopsin is an important signal transmitter in the human body, and is one of the G protein-coupled receptors.
These proteins are incorporated into biological membranes that envelop every living cell. They transmit signals from the environment, such as fragrances, flavours and, in the case of rhodopsin, light in the cells or signals from the organism, such as hormones. They are involved in many important physiological processes in the body and, thus, also play a role in most diseases. The studies also provided a detailed insight into the mechanism of the interaction between the receptor and the next protein in the signal transduction chain, known as the G protein.
With a total of 17 counted publications and 1,510 citations, Patrick Scheerer reached 28th place among the "most quoted minds" in German-speaking countries.
The journal, Laborjournal is a service magazine for medicine and biosciences that is based in Freiburg, and was founded in 1994. Target readers are scientific and technical workers in biological and medical laboratories.
For the citations rankings, articles from the years 2008 to 2012 were considered that had at least one author with an address in a German-speaking country. The number of citations and articles were provided by the databank, “Web of Science” from the Thomson-Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia.
The "minds" worked between 2008 and 2012, at least for a period, at a protein-research institute, published mainly in protein research journals, or worked primarily on protein research projects. Reviews did not count towards the "minds" classification.