Thomson Scientific Predicts Nobel Laureates

PHILADELPHIA, and LONDON, September 5 /PRNewswire/ --

- Twenty-seven `Thomson Scientific Laureates' Recognized for Their Contributions to the Advancement of Science

Thomson Scientific, part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) and leading provider of information solutions to the worldwide research and business communities, today announced its 2006 Thomson Scientific Laureates - researchers likely to contend for Nobel honors - in anticipation of this year's Nobel Prize winners to be announced in October.

Each year, data from ISI Web of Knowledge(SM), a Thomson Scientific research solution, is used to quantitatively determine the most influential researchers in the Nobel categories of chemistry, economics, physiology or medicine, and physics. Because of the total citations to their works, these high-impact researchers are named Thomson Scientific Laureates and predicted to be Nobel Prize winners, either this year or in the near future. Of the 27 Thomson Scientific Laureates named since 2002, four have gone on to win Nobel honors - an accurate-prediction average of better than one in seven.

"Citations are an acknowledgement of intellectual debt - a direct demonstration of influence in a given subject area," said Henry Small, chief scientist at Thomson Scientific. "Over the past 30 years, our studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between journal article citations and peer esteem. Researchers who have accumulated such credits from their peers are also often nominated for prizes and other honors, such as the Nobel Prize."

Thomson Scientific is the only organization to use quantitative data to make annual predictions of Nobel Prize winners. The Thomson Scientific Laureates typically rank among the top one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of researchers in their fields, based on citations of their published papers over the last two decades.

To select the 2006 Thomson Scientific Laureates, total citation counts and number of high-impact papers in the Nobel science fields were examined. These data were applied to categories within those scientific fields considered worthy of special recognition by the Nobel Committee: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and economics. Based on these criteria, possible winners - leaders within a particularly noteworthy area of study within each field - were selected.

The 2006 Thomson Scientific Laureates in four Nobel Prize categories are as follows:

Field Researcher Institution Physics Emmanuel Desurvire Alcatel Technical Academy (France) Albert Fert University of Paris-Sud (France) Peter Gruenberg Julich Research Center (Germany) Alan H. Guth Massachusetts Inst. of Technology Andrei Linde Stanford University School of Med. Masataka Nakazawa Tohoku University (Japan) David N. Payne University of Southampton (U.K.) Paul J. Steinhardt Princeton University Chemistry Gerald R. Crabtree Stanford University David A. Evans Harvard University Steven V. Ley University of Cambridge (U.K.) Tobin J. Marks Northwestern University Stuart L. Schreiber Harvard University Physiology or Medicine Mario R. Capecchi University of Utah Pierre Chambon Universite Louis Pasteur (France) Sir Martin Evans Cardiff University (U.K.) Ronald M. Evans Salk Inst. for Biological Studies Elwood V. Jensen Univ. of Cincinnati Medical Center Sir Alec J. Jefferys University of Leicester (U.K.) Oliver Smithies Univ. North Carolina School of Med. Economics Jagdish N. Bhagwati Columbia University Avinash K. Dixit Princeton University Oliver D. Hart Harvard University Bengt R. Holmstrom Massachusetts Inst. of Technology Dale W. Jorgenson Harvard University Paul Krugman Princeton University Oliver E. Williamson University of California, Berkeley

For detailed information about each of the Laureates, including information about their areas of study, visit the Thomson Scientific Laureates Website at http://scientific.thomson.com/nobel. Visitors also may make their own Nobel Prize predications, read about previously name laureates, and learn more about the Thomson Scientific selection process.

About The Thomson Corporation and Thomson Scientific

The Thomson Corporation (http://www.thomson.com), with 2005 revenues of approximately US$8.40 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate e-learning and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson has approximately 40,500 employees and provides services in approximately 130 countries. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).

Thomson Scientific is a business of The Thomson Corporation. Its information solutions assist professionals at every stage of research and development - from discovery to analysis to product development and distribution. Thomson scientific information solutions can be found at http://www.scientific.thomson.com.

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