Four Mass. academics show up in Nobel forecasts

If an international news organization is on the money, three Bay State scientists and one economist might get middle-of-the-night calls from Sweden over the next two weeks.

Thomson Reuters is going out on a Nobel laureate limb again, predicting three potential winners for each of the prestigious prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, and economics.

Gary Ruvkun of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Medical School are on the short list for the medicine and physiology prize for their discovery of gene-regulating microRNAs. They and David Baulcombe of the University of Cambridge have received the Lasker Prize and other honors for their work.

Another Massachusetts contender among three possible chemistry winners picked by Thomson Reuters is Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University for his research on nanowires and nanomaterials.

And in the dismal science, Thomson Reuters likes Martin S. Feldstein of Harvard for his research on public economics, including taxation, social security, and health economics. He is among three potential prize winners.

Thomson Reuters correlates citations in the scientific literature as well as high-impact discoveries with prizes. Its track record? Since 2002, 12 of their picks have won Nobels. In baseball terms, that's batting below .200. But maybe reading the Swedish Academy's mind is harder than hitting a major league fastball.

Stay tuned: The medicine prize is announced Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, and economics a week from Monday, Oct. 13.

Don't hold your breath for an American Nobelist in literature this year, though, according to The Associated Press. Americans are too insular in their writing, the AP quoted a Nobel juror as saying.