A scientific article by the professor Julio Rozas cited on the list “Citation Classics” of the journal ʻMolecular Biology and Evolutionʼ

The researchers Sebastián E. Ramos Onsins and Julio Rozas, at the Department of Genetics of the UB.
The researchers Sebastián E. Ramos Onsins and Julio Rozas, at the Department of Genetics of the UB.
Research
(01/02/2013)

A scientific article published in 2002 on the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution by the researchers Julio Rozas and Sebastián E. Ramos Onsins, from the Department of Genetics of the UB, is one of the international articles included in the list “Citation Classics” —the most cited articles of Molecular Biology and Evolution since 1983—published by the journal. The articles included in “Citation Classics”, selected taking into account the database of ThomsonReuters Web of Knowledge, represent 1 % of the total articles published by the journal from 1983 to 2012.

 

The researchers Sebastián E. Ramos Onsins and Julio Rozas, at the Department of Genetics of the UB.
The researchers Sebastián E. Ramos Onsins and Julio Rozas, at the Department of Genetics of the UB.
Research
01/02/2013

A scientific article published in 2002 on the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution by the researchers Julio Rozas and Sebastián E. Ramos Onsins, from the Department of Genetics of the UB, is one of the international articles included in the list “Citation Classics” —the most cited articles of Molecular Biology and Evolution since 1983—published by the journal. The articles included in “Citation Classics”, selected taking into account the database of ThomsonReuters Web of Knowledge, represent 1 % of the total articles published by the journal from 1983 to 2012.

 

 

The article written by Rozas and Ramos Onsins, entitled “Statistical properties of new neutrality tests against population growth”, is one of the most cited publications of the journal, to be exact 582. The authors describe a new statistical test that uses DNA sequence variations in order to detect population growth.

 

According to Julio Rozas, professor and ICREA Academia researcher at the Department of Genetics, “this test is based on analysing the distribution of DNA polymorphisms of genes; this distribution is compared with the one estimated by the coalescent-based approach, which explains the behaviour of gene trees in populations”. The study started in 2000, when the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Research Group, of which Rozas is member, fostered a experimental and theoretical course of action to carry out an analysis of DNA polymorphisms, and Sebastián Ramos Onsins —who holds now a Ramon y Cajal position at the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG)— was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Genetics of the UB.

 
“The research was developed when the first analyses of DNA polymorphisms began to be made. We developed a test that, in certain conditions, was the most powerful one published until then. Moreover, we included the test in a software; by this way, any researcher can make an easy and free use of it”, explains Julio Rozas, who is also member of the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the UB.
 
It is also highly remarkable that Julio Rozas is the first author of the most cited scientific article in Spain (3,368 citations up to now) from 2000 to 2010, according to the data of Essential Science Indicators. The article, entitled “DnaSP, DNA polymorphism analyses by the coalescent and other methods” was published in 2003 in the journal Bioinformatics, Oxford University Press, and it offered a powerful biocomputing software to analyse DNA polymorphisms.