Trajectories of biomedical research leading to Nobel Prize-winning discoveries.

Significant advancements in public health come from scientific discoveries, but more are needed to meet the ever-growing societal needs. Examining the best practices of outstanding scientists may help develop future researchers and lead to more discoveries. This study compared the comprehensive work of 49 Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine from 2000 to 2019 to a matched control of National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded biomedical investigators. Our unique data set, comprising 11,737 publications, 571 US patents, and 1693 NIH research awards produced by pre-Nobel laureates, was compared to a similar data set of control researchers. Compared to control researchers, pre-Nobel laureates produce significantly more publications annually (median = 5.66; interquartile range [IQR] = 5.16); significantly fewer coauthors per publication (median = 3.32; IQR = 1.95); consistently higher Journal Impact Factor publications (median = 12.04; IQR = 6.83); and substantially more patents per researcher (median = 5; IQR = 14). Such differences arose from nearly identical cumulative NIH award budgets of pre-Nobel laureates (median $25.3 M) and control researchers. Nobel laureates are neither hyper-prolific (>72 papers per year) nor hyper-funded (>$100 M cumulative). An academic age-specific trajectory graph allows aspiring researchers to compare their productivity and collaboration patterns to those of pre-Nobel laureates.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on National Institutes of Health-Funded Researchers and Their Projects: The Role of Age, Sex, Experience, and Team Size.

OBJECTIVES: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the social life, work environment, and well-being of millions of people. We examined COVID-19's impact on National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded extramural principal investigators (PIs) affiliated with public health and preventive medicine departments across the country and their projects; assessed PIs' confidence in achieving project goals; and investigated the role of age, sex, experience, and team size on PIs' confidence in achieving project goals during the pandemic. METHODS: We sent an anonymous online survey in January 2021 to 1076 extramural PIs affiliated with public health and preventive medicine departments at US institutions; 133 (12.4%) responded. We examined the impact of COVID-19 on the PIs, their project team operations, and their confidence that project objectives would be met, using Likert scales based on age, sex, team size, and PI experience. RESULTS: Of 126 PIs, 94 (74.6%) felt that their day-to-day professional life was impacted a lot or a great deal by COVID-19. More female PIs than male PIs reported that their level of stress changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of 125 PIs, 67 (53.6%) made major adjustments to research operations, 46 (36.8%) made minor adjustments, 5 (4.0%) halted research, and 7 (5.6%) reported not being affected. Of 123 PIs, 89 (72.4%) reported not using NIH COVID-19 accommodations. PIs who led projects 4 or 5 times felt more confident about meeting their research objectives than PIs who led projects 2 or 3 times. CONCLUSIONS: Future studies should investigate how to develop more engaging support and communication strategies to assist NIH researchers in mitigating the effects of pandemics or large-scale emergencies.