Nobel prizes: Asian scientists set to topple America's run of wins

Although US is predicted to clean up this year, its 50-year dominance will end, say analysts

British DNA pioneer Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys has been tipped for an award. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian
American scientists will again sweep the majority of Nobel prizes at this week's award announcements in Sweden, analysts have predicted. But they have also warned this dominance may soon come to end. David Pendlebury, a citation analyst who has correctly predicted 10 Nobel winners since 2002, believes that the countries of the east, particularly China, will soon start to rule the awards for science's greatest prize. "In the first half of the 20th century the UK, Germany, and France dominated the sciences. The US emerged as the world leader after the second world war. Now, I believe we will begin to see as many Nobel prize winners from Asia as we do from the US and Europe." Pendlebury, who works for Thomson Reuters, was speaking on the eve of the announcement of this year's awards. The prize for medicine will be revealed tomorrow; physics on Tuesday and chemistry on Wednesday. The peace prize will be announced on Thursday; economics next Monday; and literature later this month. A maximum of three individuals will be allowed to share a Nobel, with each prize being worth around £1m. Over the past 10 years, 31 out of the 76 individuals who won science Nobels were American-based while 16 out of the 21 economics winners were from the US. By contrast, Britain – a nation with a fair Nobel reputation – won eight physiology prizes, one for physics and one for economics. These overall figures are open to wide interpretation, however. Many winners hold joint nationalities and are often claimed by both their country of origin and their country of affiliation. Nevertheless, the figures do give a general indication of the gulf that separates the US from the rest of the world, one that is likely to continue this year according to Pendlebury. He has tipped a number of US teams as possible winners including Robert Langer and Joseph Vacanti, both based in Boston, for their work on tissue engineering; Sajeev John (Toronto, Canada) and Eli Yablonovitch (Berkeley, California) for work on photonics; and Allen Bard (Austin, Texas) for his work on scanning electrochemical microscopy. Pendlebury cautioned care about betting on his predictions, however. "If you only consider the top 0.1% of the most cited scientists in the world, that includes more than 1,000 researchers," added Pendlebury. "You can narrow it down but it gets harder and harder to differentiate their contributions. In the end, it rests with the individual preferences of Nobel committee members. Nobels are currently dominated by US scientists. However, US investment in the physical sciences is no longer as robust as its investment in biological and medical sciences, so I think in the next decade or so we will begin to see many more Nobel Prize winners from Asia." As to his own hopes for this week's prizes, Pendlebury admitted to a couple of favourites. One is Sir Alec Jeffreys, the Leicester University biochemist who, in 1984, developed the techniques of DNA fingerprinting and profiling that have transformed forensic science. "Nobels are usually given for theoretical work. However, prizes have been given for applied work, such as fibre optics, and I would really like to see Jeffreys rewarded for a discovery that has had an enormous impact on society." Pendlebury also champions the cause of Jacques Miller, the 80-year-old French-Australian researcher who revealed the key role of the thymus in controlling the body's immune system, a discovery of immense medical importance. "It was a critical discovery, though Miller made it 50 years ago. He is still doing research and it would be great if he could get a Nobel. "Of course, half a century may seem a long time to wait for proper recognition for your work but it would not be a record. The American researcher Peyton Rous had to wait until 1966 to be given a Nobel for his work that led to the discovery of tumour-causing viruses, even though he carried it out in 1911. So I'm still holding out hope for Jacques later this week." Additional research by Phoebe Cooke