Vice Dean of Basic Research Receives Honor as a ScholarGPS Highly Ranked Scholars

Geoffrey W. Abbott, PhD, vice dean of Basic Research and professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics, is a top-ranked scholar according to ScholarGPS, the world’s most comprehensive and dynamic scholarly analytics site. Abbott is ranked No. 1 in the world for potassium channel research over the most recent five-year period. 

Highly Ranked Scholars are the most productive (based on number of publications) authors whose works are of profound impact (based on citations) and of utmost quality; it is weighted to reward relative contribution to each paper and disregards self-citations. According to ScholarGPS, Abbott has 162 publications and more than 10,000 predicted citations.  

The most highly cited research from Abbott’s lab during the most recent five-year period involves the discovery of new activators of potassium channels, including neurotransmitters and plant metabolites, and the molecular mechanistic basis of action of traditional botanical medicines.

Potassium channels are in every cell of the body and best known for controlling cellular excitability, permitting potassium ions to travel across the cell membrane to return cells to rest at the end of every action potential. Potassium channels are essential for normal neuronal excitability, for the correct timing of each heartbeat, and for the concerted contraction and relaxation of skeletal muscle, Abbott explained. When potassium channels don’t work properly, because of inherited mutations or drug side effects, for example, it can lead to epilepsy, cardiac arrhythmia, periodic paralysis and ataxia.

Research in the Abbott Lab is directed toward understanding potassium channel function and dysfunction, and discovering small molecules that can beneficially activate potassium channels to treat diseases of hyperexcitability.

Much of the Abbott Lab’s research has been funded by an NIGMS R35 MIRA award, an NINDS R01 award, and a Samueli Scholarship from the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute.

Ranked No. 2, right behind Abbott on the potassium channel, is Rían W. Manville, PhD, an assistant project scientist in Abbott’s lab, and a first author on many of the publications. Both Abbott and Manville are ranked in the field of life sciences in the physiology discipline.