Our ranking of biotech's top translational researchers (Table 1) is based on total patents (US and Europe) granted in 2017; the most-cited patent for the past five years; and the H-index, a method for determining the impact of a scientist's body of published work (higher means more impact). Robert Langer, of MIT, is again at the top; UPenn's James Wilson moved up eight places from 2016; UT Southwestern's Joseph Ready joins the list, as do a trio of researchers from the University of Tokyo. MIT's Feng Zhang dominates the ranking of most-cited patents (Table 2), with CRISPR contributing to nucleic acid therapy as the biggest focus for most-cited patents (Fig. 1).

Table 1 Top 20 translational researchers in 2017
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Table 2 Top 5 most-cited patents, 2013–2017
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Figure 1: Focus area for 50 most-cited patents, 2013–2017.
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Source: Acclaim IP

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