Celebrating Excellence in French Research

From Louis Pasteur’s Pioneering Rabies Treatment in 1885 to Jean Weissenbach’s Recent Work With Genetic Linkage Maps

Philadelphia PA, USA-London UK, 05/10/2006, Thomson Scientific, a business of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC), will hold a celebratory reception at I-EXPO in honor of France’s history of research excellence, and of its bright future. The reception will be held from 1 to 2pm on May 31, 2006 at the Thomson Scientific exhibit booth (#C4). I-EXPO 2006 will be held at the Paris Expo Cnit La Defense May 31 - June 1, 2006.

Influential researchers
Thomson Scientific data highlights France’s position as a major player on the world research stage. With 135 researchers in ISIHighlycited.comSM, France has the sixth highest number of researchers in the database. ISIHighlycited.com is the free, expert gateway to the world’s most cited and influential scientific authors.

World-leading research
Another Thomson Scientific evaluation tool, Essential Science Indicators(SM), measures scientific trends and ranks the performance of academic institutions, countries, researchers, corporations and journals in 22 specific fields. It reveals that France ranks sixth in four fields; fifth in nine fields; fourth in five; and third and second in agriculture and mathematics, respectively. In the other two remaining fields, France ranks in the top ten.

Nobel Prize winners
In the early part of the 20th century, France produced such distinguished Nobel Prize winners as Marie Curie (Physics in 1903; Chemistry in 1911) and Henri Becquerel (Physics in 1903). Georges Charpak (1992 Nobel Prize winner in Physics) and Jean Weissenbach’s are examples of France’s contribution to modern research with revolutionary radiology examination equipment and Genetic Linkage Maps, respectively. And in 2005, Yves Chauvin of the Institut Français du Pétrole shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis.

France’s contribution to ground-breaking discovery can be traced as far back as the 17th century with noted French philosopher, René Descartes. His work, La géométrie, included his application of algebra to geometry from which we now have Cartesian geometry, which has had a significant influence on both mathematicians and philosophers worldwide. In the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau emerged. His profound insight can be found in almost every trace of modern philosophy today.

In the 19th century Louis Pasteur transformed medicine with his discovery of the method for the attenuation of virulent microorganisms, which became the basis of vaccination. Having developed vaccines against chicken cholera, anthrax and swine erysipelas, he then applied this concept to rabies—testing the treatment on man for the first time on July 6, 1885.

“Clearly, France has made significant contributions to research and discovery,” said Keith MacGregor, executive vice president of Academic & Government Markets. “We are pleased to celebrate and recognize the impact the nation has had on world research.”

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Rodney Yancey

Manager, Corporate Communications

Thomson Scientific

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