Close to the edge: Co-authorship proximity of Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine, 1991 - 2010, to cross-disciplinary brokers Chris Fields 528 Zinnia Court Sonoma, CA 95476 USA fi
[email protected] January 2, 2015 Abstract Between 1991 and 2010, 45 scientists were honored with Nobel prizes in Physiology or Medicine. It is shown that these 45 Nobel laureates are separated, on average, by at most 2.8 co-authorship steps from at least one cross-disciplinary broker, defined as a researcher who has published co-authored papers both in some biomedical discipline and in some non-biomedical discipline. If Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine and their immediate collaborators can be regarded as forming the intuitive “center” of the biomedical sciences, then at least for this 20-year sample of Nobel laureates, the center of the biomedical sciences within the co-authorship graph of all of the sciences is closer to the edges of multiple non-biomedical disciplines than typical biomedical researchers are to each other. Keywords: Biomedicine; Co-authorship graphs; Cross-disciplinary brokerage; Graph cen- trality; Preferential attachment Running head: Proximity of Nobel laureates to cross-disciplinary brokers 1 1 Introduction It is intuitively tempting to visualize scientific disciplines as spheres, with highly produc- tive, well-funded intellectual and political leaders such as Nobel laureates occupying their centers and less productive, less well-funded researchers being increasingly peripheral. As preferential attachment mechanisms as well as the economics of employment tend to give the well-known and well-funded more collaborators than the less well-known and less well- funded (e.g.