Kaj Blennow at the top

Kaj Blennow is number one in the rankings of Swedish researchers in the field of neuroscience, and 17th among researchers worldwide. This is according to rankings that were recently published by the site Research.com, where as many as five Swedish researchers, two of whom are from the University of Gothenburg, were among the 100 highest ranked researchers in neuroscience.

LISTAN DOMINERAS STORT The list is dominated by researchers from the USA, but there are also a number of researchers from Great Britain.

– The ranking is based on the so-called d-index, which is calculated based on the researcher's number of publications and citations within a certain field. It is said that a successful researcher should have a d-index that is equivalent to his age or higher, explains Kaj Blennow, Professor of Neurochemistry.

With five researchers in the top 100, among others Henrik Zetterberg from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden is in a very commendable third place in the world in neuroscience.

– That we are successful can be demonstrated by the fact that it was a researcher from Uppsala, Lars Lannfelt, who developed the drug Lecanemab, which very effectively removes amyloid plaque from the brain. It is the only effective drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s that has been developed so far.

Kaj Blennow and Henrik Zetterberg have also made an important breakthrough in their Alzheimer's research. Together with PhD students Fernando Gonzalez and Przemek Kac and researcher Thomas Karikari, they have developed new methods to measure the breakdown of nerve cells in the blood and also a test for tau pathology in the brain.

– THIS MEANS a completely new strategy that makes it easier to detect Alzheimer's at an early stage. An elderly person who is worried about their memory will be able to go to their health centre, take a simple cognitive test and then take a blood test. If the person is judged to have a low risk of illness, they will be sent home, if the risk is judged to be high, the person will be referred to a specialist clinic for a more thorough examination. Thanks to the drug Lecanemab, the outlook for the treatment of Alzheimer's is much brighter than it was just a few years ago.

Eva Lundgren

→About the rankings: The rankings for researchers in neuroscience is available here: https://research.com/scientists-rankings/ neuroscience.

Swedish researchers who are on the ranking list (their ranking appears in brackets) Kaj Blennow, the University of Gothenburg (17), Anders Björklund, Lund University (23), Tomas Hökfelt, Karolinska Institutet (30), Kjell Fuxe, Karolinska Institutet (40), and Henrik Zetterberg, the University of Gothenburg (70).