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Subfield · Immunology and Microbiology

Parasitology research

Parasitology is a subfield of Immunology and Microbiology. Science Explorer counts 154k 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: branch of biology that studies parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them.

Research works
154k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
16k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
7
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+1%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
27% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Parasitology

What is Parasitology research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Epidemiology, Public Health, Host-Pathogen Interactions, Zoonotic Transmission, Helminth Infections, Schistosomiasis. Gaining share since 2011-15: Leptospira, Zoonotic Disease.

▲ 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 19 words, with their numbers
  1. Epidemiology19k◆ 1.02×5 topics
  2. Public Health12k◆ 1.00×2 topics
  3. Host-Pathogen Interactions11k◆ 1.02×2 topics
  4. Zoonotic Transmission8,812◆ 0.92×2 topics
  5. Helminth Infections7,435◆ 0.99×1 topic
  6. Schistosomiasis7,435◆ 0.99×1 topic
  7. Lyme Disease6,732◆ 1.09×1 topic
  8. Tick-Borne Diseases6,732◆ 1.09×1 topic
  9. Diagnosis6,187◆ 1.02×2 topics
  10. Cryptosporidium5,043◆ 0.91×1 topic
  11. Giardia5,043◆ 0.91×1 topic
  12. Neosporosis3,769◆ 0.92×1 topic
  13. Toxoplasma gondii3,769◆ 0.92×1 topic
  14. Avian Malaria2,436◆ 0.92×1 topic
  15. Haemosporidian Parasites2,436◆ 0.92×1 topic
  16. Leptospira2,418▲ 1.21×1 topic
  17. Zoonotic Disease2,418▲ 1.21×1 topic
  18. Bartonella1,466◆ 1.12×1 topic
  19. Infections1,466◆ 1.12×1 topic

Which countries lead Parasitology research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, China and the United Kingdom rank highest in Parasitology. By volume, the United States and China publish the most (3.9k and 2.5k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #1 all time 1.11× citation excellence · 1.62× journals · 100% breadth 12.4% top 10% · 3.3k works
  2. 2 China #5 all time 1.26× citation excellence · 1.03× journals · 100% breadth 14.8% top 10% · 2.1k works
  3. 3 United Kingdom #2 all time 1.62× citation excellence · 1.47× journals · 100% breadth 16.7% top 10% · 684 works
  4. 4 France #3 all time 1.67× citation excellence · 1.28× journals · 100% breadth 15.0% top 10% · 706 works
  5. 5 Germany #4 all time 1.43× citation excellence · 1.39× journals · 100% breadth 14.1% top 10% · 585 works
  6. 6 Switzerland #6 all time 1.64× citation excellence · 1.88× journals · 100% breadth 18.0% top 10% · 210 works
  7. 7 Australia #7 all time 1.47× citation excellence · 1.20× journals · 100% breadth 15.9% top 10% · 398 works
  8. 8 Spain #8 all time 1.40× citation excellence · 0.99× journals · 100% breadth 14.4% top 10% · 557 works
  9. 9 Canada #10 all time 1.16× citation excellence · 1.20× journals · 100% breadth 12.2% top 10% · 307 works
  10. 10 Italy #15 all time 1.24× citation excellence · 0.67× journals · 100% breadth 14.4% top 10% · 396 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 28 countries ranked in Parasitology. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Parasitology

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 3.9k works
  2. 2 China 2.5k works
  3. 3 Brazil 2.2k works
  4. 4 India 1.6k works
  5. 5 France 820 works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 816 works
  7. 7 Germany 684 works
  8. 8 Iran 670 works
  9. 9 Spain 657 works
  10. 10 Türkiye 582 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: 27.0%China: 17.4%Brazil: 15.3%India: 11.3%6 others listed: 29.0%27%largest
United States3,926 · 27.0%China2,536 · 17.4%Brazil2,233 · 15.3%India1,642 · 11.3%6 others listed4,229 · 29.0%

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

Which institutions lead Parasitology research?

United States Department of Health and Human Services (United States) ranks first in Parasitology on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Institut Pasteur.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States Department of Health and Human Services United States · Washington · #2 all time 26.1% top 10% · 75 works
  2. 2 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique France · Paris · #7 all time 17.0% top 10% · 129 works
  3. 3 Institut Pasteur France · Paris · #33 all time 15.0% top 10% · 74 works
  4. 4 Czech Academy of Sciences Czechia · Prague · #68 all time 13.3% top 10% · 70 works
  5. 5 Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement France · Paris · #46 all time 11.3% top 10% · 73 works
  6. 6 Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs China · Beijing · #77 all time 16.9% top 10% · 94 works
  7. 7 Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences China · Beijing · #64 all time 15.8% top 10% · 98 works
  8. 8 United States Department of Agriculture United States · Washington · #66 all time 20.0% top 10% · 85 works
  9. 9 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas Argentina · Buenos Aires 8.8% top 10% · 90 works
  10. 10 Universidade de São Paulo Brazil · São Paulo · #88 all time 11.5% top 10% · 100 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 17 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Parasitology.

Top 100 Parasitology institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 151 works
  2. 2 Fundação Oswaldo CruzBrazil 140 works
  3. 3 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 130 works
  4. 4 Universidade de São PauloBrazil 114 works
  5. 5 Chinese Academy of Agricultural SciencesChina 112 works
  6. 6 Ministry of Agriculture and Rural AffairsChina 109 works
  7. 7 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasArgentina 104 works
  8. 8 United States Department of AgricultureUnited States 96 works
  9. 9 Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)Brazil 88 works
  10. 10 Institut PasteurFrance 86 works

Who are the leading researchers in Parasitology?

Counting only their work in Parasitology, Lihua Xiao, L. David Sibley and Didier Raoult have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Lihua Xiao United States · #30,582 worldwide overall 91.5 of 268 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 L. David Sibley United States · #1,497 worldwide overall 70.2 of 124 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Didier Raoult France · #233,723 worldwide overall 125.1 of 580 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Allen C. Steere United States · #8,427 worldwide overall 54.0 of 111 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Jürg Utzinger Switzerland · #39,248 worldwide overall 59.2 of 171 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Jack S. Remington United States · #41,938 worldwide overall 53.2 of 130 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Jitender Prakash Dubey United States · #367,971 worldwide overall 96.0 of 540 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Nicholas John White Thailand · #15,852 worldwide overall 44.5 of 91 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 John C. Boothroyd United States · #10,895 worldwide overall 43.2 of 85 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Peter Jay Hotez United States · #16,904 worldwide overall 50.7 of 164 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Parasitology alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 473,774 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 Parasitology researchers

What are the most cited papers in Parasitology?

The most cited paper in Parasitology is "A technique for radiolabeling DNA restriction endonuclease fragments to high specific activity" (Andrew P. Feinberg, Bert Vogelstein, 1983), with 25,160 citations. Next come "Lounging in a lysosome: the intracellular lifestyle of Coxiella burnetii" (11,768) and "Human Malaria Parasites in Continuous Culture" (8,039).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 A technique for radiolabeling DNA restriction endonuclease fragments to high specific activity Andrew P. Feinberg, Bert Vogelstein · Analytical Biochemistry Jul 1983 25,160
2 Lounging in a lysosome: the intracellular lifestyle of Coxiella burnetii Daniel E. Voth, Robert A. Heinzen · Cellular Microbiology Open access 16 Feb 2007 11,768
3 Human Malaria Parasites in Continuous Culture William F. Trager, James B. Jensen · Science 20 Aug 1976 8,039
4 A human homologue of the Drosophila Toll protein signals activation of adaptive immunity Ruslan M. Medzhitov, Paula Preston‐Hurlburt, Charles A. Janeway · Nature 24 Jul 1997 5,620
5 Leishmaniasis Worldwide and Global Estimates of Its Incidence Jorge Alvar, Iván Darío Vélez, Caryn Bern et al. · PLoS ONE Open access 31 May 2012 5,260
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Parasitology research done?

The largest centres of Parasitology research in 2022-now are São Paulo (Brazil), Beijing (China), Paris (France) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Obihiro and Maisons-Alfort.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 São PauloBrazil 417 works
  2. 2 BeijingChina 329 works
  3. 3 ParisFrance 276 works
  4. 4 Rio de JaneiroBrazil 251 works
  5. 5 LondonUnited Kingdom 220 works
  6. 6 TehranIran 192 works
  7. 7 BangkokThailand 191 works
  8. 8 MadridSpain 186 works
  9. 9 ShanghaiChina 162 works
  10. 10 Mexico CityMexico 159 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. ObihiroJP · 27.4 works48×
  2. Maisons-AlfortFR · 46.6 works41×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

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

See Parasitology on the map

Parasitology research by country

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

Where is the best place to study Parasitology?

Among universities, judged by research, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Harvard University and University of Oxford 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%30%mean 17.27%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →London School of Hyg…University of OxfordHarvard UniversityYale University
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
1London School of Hygiene & Tropical MedicineUnited Kingdom 78.8- (#4)20.4%11.9×43 -3.1%
2Harvard UniversityUnited States 78.1- (#3)17.4%0.8×60 +3.8%
3University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 75.7- (#5)18.3%2.2×71 -9.4%
4Yale UniversityUnited States 64.5- (#8)13.0%2.0×48 -1.7%
5Stanford UniversityUnited States 62.3- (#6)13.9%0.8×28 -19.5%
6Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 59.1- (#9)13.4%1.3×46 -19.3%
7The University of MelbourneAustralia 57.6- (#14)19.3%2.0×50 -43.4%
8Cornell UniversityUnited States 57.2- (#11)12.2%1.7×49 -13.9%
9University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 55.8- (#16)25.9%1.2×29 +5.1%
10Washington University in St. LouisUnited States 54.8- (#12)18.9%1.3×22 -25.7%

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 Parasitology, country by country

Is Parasitology research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 1% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Bartonella species infections research, Vector-borne infectious diseases and Leptospirosis research and findings.

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 Parasitology as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.10% in 2024.

still counting0.10%0.20%0.30%Parasitology0.11% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Parasitology 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%Parasitology10.8% 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. Bartonella species infections research+15%
  2. Vector-borne infectious diseases+4%
  3. Leptospirosis research and findings+2%
  4. Toxoplasma gondii Research Studies+1%
  5. Parasites and Host Interactions-1%
  6. Parasitic Infections and Diagnostics-4%
  7. Bird parasitology and diseases-4%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

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

What does Parasitology include?

Parasites and Host Inter…38kParasites and Host Interactions: 38k fractional worksVector-borne infectious …33kVector-borne infectious diseases: 33k fractional worksParasitic Infections and Diagnostics: 31k fractional worksToxoplasma gondii Resear…21kToxoplasma gondii Research Studies: 21k fractional worksBird parasitology and di…15kBird parasitology and diseases: 15k fractional worksLeptospirosis research and findings: 11k fractional worksBartonella species infections research: 6,957 fractional works

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

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Who leads Parasitology, on Science Explorer

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

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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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