Characterizing scientific elites:publication and citation patterns of outstanding scientists in biomedicine

Science is principally driven by the efforts of a small fraction of researchers publishing the m ajority of scientific research and garnering the m ajority of citations.The quantitative analysis of outstanding scientists’publication and citation patterns provides a new perspective fo r understanding of scientific talents.The study of outstanding scientists can enhance our understanding of the publication and citation patterns and their scientific careers more generally.Based on 35,315 research papers from the biomedical field,we analyzed the academic productivity and influence characteristics of 244 outstanding scientists in biomedical field.Several interesting patterns are observed as follows:as outstanding scientists’career age increased,(1)their scientific output shows a trend of decreasing after increasing,(2)their academic influence shows a trend of continuous growth,(3)their number of the co-authors in their scientific career first increases and then remains stable,and(4)the number of their research areas first decreases and then increases.