A numerical perspective on Nature authors.

Karuna Sampath describes her lab as informal and boisterous. Based at the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) in Singapore, Sampath heads a team of seven investigating vertebrate development. Fortunately for Sampath, she has few administrative responsibilities and does not have to apply for grants formally. This means that she has more time to work at the bench with her team — something she enjoys immensely.

Choosing the right people to work with is one of the keys to successful research, says Sampath. On page 1030 of this issue, Sampath and her team reveal the fruits of a collaboration with Eric Weinberg's group at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, which resulted in the early identification of dorsal cells in embryonic zebrafish.

54 submissions to Nature in 2005 came from Singapore (total global submissions=more than 13,000).

12 authors working in Singapore contributed to papers published in Nature during 2005 (total number of authors=more than 5,500).

92% of all authors in Singapore who contributed to Nature this year work in the biological sciences.

67% of authors in Singapore published in Nature this year are based at the TLL.