Clarivate 2024 report: three Federicians among world's most cited researchers

The "Highly Cited Researchers 2024" ranking, compiled by the Web of Science Group - Clarivate Analytics, features Danilo Ercolini, Angelo Antonio Izzo, and Edoardo Pasolli, Federican scientists who have produced the most cited scientific publications, making significant contributions in their fields of activity and, for this reason, considered among the most influential in the world in their fields.

Each year, the report indicates the researchers who have published the highest number of "Highly Cited Papers," or most cited scientific articles in the past decade. The number of citations is also matched by a qualitative assessment by experts at Clarivate'sInstitute for Scientific Information.

Of the world's entire population of scientists from all disciplines, 'Highly Cited Researchers' are 1 in 1,000. In fact, only 0.1 percent of the world's researchers receive this recognition, which is an important parameter in global university quality rankings, as well as one of the highest international honors for a researcher.

This year the Clarivate awards went to 6,636 researchers from universities, institutes or institutions in 59 different countries, and among them 112 work in Italy.

The multidisciplinary studies, from food quality to human health, confirmed among the Highly Cited Researchers (cross-field), Danilo Ercolini, Director of the Department of Agriculture, already on the Clarivate 2022 and 2023 rankings. A professor of Microbiology, Ercolini focuses his scientific activity on the study of the microbiome in food and humans. His studies on the impact of diet on the human microbiome and contributions on the study of the effects of the Mediterranean diet have been particularly appreciated.

Also from the Department of Agriculture, among the cross-field is, for the second year in a row, Edoardo Pasolli, associate professor of telecommunications whose research interests aim to develop and apply computational approaches and machine learning methodologies for metagenomics data, with a focus on human and food microbiomes.

Focusing instead on the disciplinary scientific area of Pharmacology is the research of Angelo Antonio Izzo, Director of the Department of Pharmacy, for the fifth time among the Highly Cited Researchers in the field of Pharmacology and Toxicology, who is primarily concerned with the pharmacological study and potential therapeutic applications of plant-derived compounds, with particular interest in the potential of cannabinoids and natural compounds that bind Transient Receptor Potential Channels.