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Subfield · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Biophysics research

Biophysics is a subfield of Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology. Science Explorer counts 144k research works in it since 1950. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: study of biological systems using methods from the physical sciences.

Research works
144k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
14k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
6
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+18%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
29% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Biophysics

What is Biophysics research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Bioimage Analysis, High-Content Screening, Infrared Spectroscopy, Raman Spectroscopy, Fluorescent Proteins, Super-Resolution Imaging. Gaining share since 2011-15: Bioimage Analysis, High-Content Screening. Losing share: Distance Measurements, Electron Spin Resonance, Fluorescent Proteins, Super-Resolution Imaging.

▲ gaining share of this field◆ holding its share▼ losing share

Size is the world's fractional works in 2021-25 in the topics tagged with each word; colour compares the word's share of this field with 2011-15. Each links to the topic it comes from most.

All 12 words, with their numbers
  1. Bioimage Analysis9,619▲ 1.61×1 topic
  2. High-Content Screening9,619▲ 1.61×1 topic
  3. Infrared Spectroscopy9,119◆ 1.12×1 topic
  4. Raman Spectroscopy9,119◆ 1.12×1 topic
  5. Fluorescent Proteins6,254▼ 0.77×1 topic
  6. Super-Resolution Imaging6,254▼ 0.77×1 topic
  7. Distance Measurements2,503▼ 0.55×1 topic
  8. Electron Spin Resonance2,503▼ 0.55×1 topic
  9. Electromagnetic Fields2,413▼ 0.80×1 topic
  10. Magnetoreception2,413▼ 0.80×1 topic
  11. Aqueous Solutions754◆ 0.90×1 topic
  12. Interfacial Water754◆ 0.90×1 topic

Which countries lead Biophysics research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, China and Germany rank highest in Biophysics. By volume, the United States and China publish the most (6.2k and 5.9k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #1 all time 1.03× citation excellence · 1.31× journals · 100% breadth 10.5% top 10% · 5.2k works
  2. 2 China #3 all time 1.17× citation excellence · 1.08× journals · 100% breadth 13.6% top 10% · 5.1k works
  3. 3 Germany #2 all time 1.18× citation excellence · 1.40× journals · 100% breadth 10.7% top 10% · 1.4k works
  4. 4 United Kingdom #4 all time 1.19× citation excellence · 1.33× journals · 100% breadth 11.2% top 10% · 1k works
  5. 5 Switzerland #6 all time 1.45× citation excellence · 1.81× journals · 100% breadth 15.0% top 10% · 276 works
  6. 6 France #5 all time 0.85× citation excellence · 1.13× journals · 100% breadth 7.7% top 10% · 908 works
  7. 7 Australia #7 all time 1.19× citation excellence · 1.26× journals · 100% breadth 11.0% top 10% · 339 works
  8. 8 South Korea #11 all time 1.02× citation excellence · 0.97× journals · 100% breadth 11.5% top 10% · 512 works
  9. 9 Canada #10 all time 1.05× citation excellence · 0.98× journals · 100% breadth 10.3% top 10% · 472 works
  10. 10 Netherlands #8 all time 1.26× citation excellence · 1.11× journals · 100% breadth 11.0% top 10% · 274 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 19 countries ranked in Biophysics. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Biophysics

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 6.2k works
  2. 2 China 5.9k works
  3. 3 Germany 1.7k works
  4. 4 India 1.6k works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 1.2k works
  6. 6 Japan 1.1k works
  7. 7 France 1k works
  8. 8 Russia 891 works
  9. 9 Italy 822 works
  10. 10 South Korea 588 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 29.3%China: 28.1%Germany: 8.1%India: 7.5%6 others listed: 27.0%29%largest
United States6,186 · 29.3%China5,934 · 28.1%Germany1,704 · 8.1%India1,571 · 7.5%6 others listed5,686 · 27.0%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Biophysics research?

Harvard University (United States) ranks first in Biophysics on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Chinese Academy of Sciences and Max Planck Society.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Harvard University United States · Cambridge · #1 all time 18.6% top 10% · 183 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of Sciences China · Beijing · #8 all time 12.8% top 10% · 342 works
  3. 3 Max Planck Society Germany · Munich · #3 all time 16.0% top 10% · 100 works
  4. 4 Stanford University United States · Stanford · #4 all time 18.0% top 10% · 84 works
  5. 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States · Cambridge · #7 all time 16.1% top 10% · 72 works
  6. 6 National Institutes of Health United States · Bethesda · #9 all time 11.7% top 10% · 89 works
  7. 7 Peking University China · Beijing · #23 all time 19.5% top 10% · 86 works
  8. 8 Tsinghua University China · Beijing · #45 all time 16.4% top 10% · 100 works
  9. 9 University of Washington United States · Seattle · #15 all time 12.5% top 10% · 75 works
  10. 10 University of Oxford United Kingdom · Oxford · #16 all time 15.4% top 10% · 65 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 29 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Biophysics.

Top 100 Biophysics institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 415 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 391 works
  3. 3 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 334 works
  4. 4 Harvard UniversityUnited States 213 works
  5. 5 Helmholtz Association of German Research CentresGermany 141 works
  6. 6 Zhejiang UniversityChina 132 works
  7. 7 Max Planck SocietyGermany 119 works
  8. 8 Tsinghua UniversityChina 112 works
  9. 9 National Research CouncilItaly 107 works
  10. 10 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 104 works

Who are the leading researchers in Biophysics?

Counting only their work in Biophysics, Stefan W. Hell, Anne E. Carpenter and Ji‐Xin Cheng have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Stefan W. Hell Germany · #10,147 worldwide overall 64.8 of 168 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Anne E. Carpenter United States · #7,138 worldwide overall 31.2 of 55 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Ji‐Xin Cheng United States · #42,037 worldwide overall 36.9 of 118 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Xiaoliang Sunney Xie United States · #6,402 worldwide overall 29.5 of 57 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Markus Sauer Germany · #70,563 worldwide overall 29.2 of 78 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Christian Eggeling United Kingdom · #71,393 worldwide overall 27.1 of 72 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Roger Y. Tsien United States · #417 worldwide overall 22.8 of 32 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Jürgen Popp Germany · #337,408 worldwide overall 42.6 of 249 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Mike Heilemann Germany · #66,153 worldwide overall 24.1 of 66 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Eric Betzig United States · #8,636 worldwide overall 21.2 of 38 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Biophysics alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 632,228 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Biophysics researchers

What are the most cited papers in Biophysics?

The most cited paper in Biophysics is "U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation" (Olaf Ronneberger, Philipp F. Fischer, Thomas Brox, 2015), with 92,751 citations. Next come "Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis" (73,171) and "NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis" (67,169).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation Olaf Ronneberger, Philipp F. Fischer, Thomas Brox · Lecture notes in computer science Conference paperOpen access 2015 92,751
2 Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis Johannes Schindelin, Ignacio Arganda‐Carreras, Erwin Frise et al. · Nature Methods Open access 28 Jun 2012 73,171
3 NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis Caroline A Schneider, Wayne S. Rasband, Kevin W. Eliceiri · Nature Methods Open access 28 Jun 2012 67,169
4 Tissue sulfhydryl groups George L. Ellman · Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics May 1959 26,451
5 phyloseq: An R Package for Reproducible Interactive Analysis and Graphics of Microbiome Census Data Paul J. McMurdie, Susan Holmes · PLoS ONE Open access 22 Apr 2013 23,323
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Biophysics research done?

The largest centres of Biophysics research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Paris (France) and Moscow (Russia). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Chevy Chase and Jena.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 1.1k works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 447 works
  3. 3 ParisFrance 399 works
  4. 4 MoscowRussia 384 works
  5. 5 TokyoJapan 349 works
  6. 6 LondonUnited Kingdom 305 works
  7. 7 HangzhouChina 288 works
  8. 8 GuangzhouChina 275 works
  9. 9 NanjingChina 263 works
  10. 10 SeoulSouth Korea 260 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Chevy ChaseUS · 29.4 works12×
  2. JenaDE · 102.1 works8.8×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Biophysics than the world average.

See Biophysics on the map

Biophysics research by country

The best places for Biophysics research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Biophysics?

Among universities, judged by research, Harvard University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 15.14%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Harvard UniversityStanford UniversityMassachusetts Instit…ETH Zurich
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Harvard UniversityUnited States 84.6#1 (#1)17.6%2.8×213 +9.5%
2Stanford UniversityUnited States 62.5#4 (#4)17.6%2.8×101 -8.1%
3Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUnited States 57.6#5 (#7)16.0%4.7×80 -3.6%
4ETH ZurichSwitzerland 51.0- (#5)14.7%3.2×54 -2.8%
5Peking UniversityChina 49.5#7 (#23)18.3%2.1×103 +61.5%
6University of California, BerkeleyUnited States 48.1#14 (#13)14.1%2.9×66 +10.1%
7University of WashingtonUnited States 47.7#9 (#15)12.9%3.0×84 +3.4%
8Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 46.8#13 (#21)11.9%2.5×92 +25.1%
9University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 45.9#10 (#16)15.4%2.2×76 -15.8%
10Columbia UniversityUnited States 44.7- (#11)12.9%2.2×60 +5.2%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), citation excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in Biophysics, country by country

Is Biophysics research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 18% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Cell Image Analysis Techniques, Spectroscopy Techniques in Biomedical and Chemical Research and Chemical and Physical Studies.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Biophysics as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.12% in 2024.

still counting0.10%0.20%0.30%Biophysics0.12% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Biophysics over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Biophysics10.1% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

  1. Cell Image Analysis Techniques+43%
  2. Spectroscopy Techniques in Biomedical and Chemical Research+29%
  3. Chemical and Physical Studies+21%
  4. Electromagnetic Fields and Biological Effects+6%
  5. Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques-5%
  6. Electron Spin Resonance Studies-8%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

Growth in output from 2018-21 to 2022-25. Every topic is a page of its own.

What does Biophysics include?

Spectroscopy Techniques …37kSpectroscopy Techniques in Biomedical and Chemical Research: 37k fractional worksElectron Spin Resonance …30kElectron Spin Resonance Studies: 30k fractional worksAdvanced Fluorescence Mi…29kAdvanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques: 29k fractional worksCell Image Analysis Techniques: 29k fractional worksElectromagnetic Fields and Biological Effects: 13k fractional worksChemical and Physical Studies: 4,695 fractional works

Area is fractional works in that topic. Every name below is a page of its own.

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Who leads Biophysics, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead Biophysics, for a post or a slide.

Download the card

1200 × 630 PNG, sized for social posts, drawn from the latest snapshot.

The leading institutions' badges6Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

Discussion

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