2026 Rob Knight: Biology and Biochemistry Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Best Scientists	252	47	42	31	28	1133	420018
Biology and Biochemistry	258	5	5	3	3	1453	449341

Research.com Recognitions

2026 - Research.com Biology and Biochemistry in United States Leader Award
2025 - Research.com Best Scientists Award
2025 - Research.com Biology and Biochemistry in United States Leader Award
2023 - Research.com Biology and Biochemistry in United States Leader Award
2022 - Research.com Biology and Biochemistry in United States Leader Award
2020 - Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE)
2019 - National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award
2012 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Overview

Rob Knight is affiliated with the University of California, San Diego in the United States. Their research spans multiple fields, primarily focusing on biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and medicine. Within these domains, their work addresses several subfields such as molecular biology, physiology, infectious diseases, public health, environmental and occupational health, and ecology.

The scientist's research topics include:

Gut microbiota and health
Diet and metabolism studies
Metabolomics and mass spectrometry studies
Nutritional studies and diet
Genomics and phylogenetic studies
Tryptophan and brain disorders
Clostridium difficile and Clostridium perfringens research

Rob Knight has published extensively, contributing to journals and venues such as:

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
mSystems
Gastroenterology
Alzheimer's & Dementia
Circulation

Frequent co-authors working alongside Rob Knight include:

Daniel McDonald
Pieter C. Dorrestein
Qiyun Zhu
Cameron Martino
Austin D. Swafford

Among the more recent papers associated with Rob Knight are:

Large-scale association analyses identify host factors influencing human gut microbiome composition, 2021, Nature Genetics
The microbiome and human cancer, 2021, Science
RETRACTED ARTICLE: Microbiome analyses of blood and tissues suggest cancerdiagnostic approach, 2020, Nature
Structure-based protein function prediction using graph convolutional networks, 2021, Nature Communications
Precise phylogenetic analysis of microbial isolates and genomes from metagenomes using PhyloPhlAn 3.0, 2020, Nature Communications

Rob Knight has been recognized with several awards, including:

Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), 2020
National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award, 2019
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2012

Best Publications

QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing data.

J Gregory Caporaso;Justin Kuczynski;Jesse Stombaugh;Kyle Bittinger

37106
Citations
Reproducible, interactive, scalable and extensible microbiome data science using QIIME 2

Evan Bolyen;Jai Ram Rideout;Matthew R. Dillon;Nicholas A. Bokulich

21851
Citations
UCHIME improves sensitivity and speed of chimera detection

Robert C. Edgar;Brian J. Haas;Jose C. Clemente;Christopher Quince

14561
Citations
Structure, function and diversity of the healthy human microbiome

Curtis Huttenhower;Curtis Huttenhower;Dirk Gevers;Rob Knight;Rob Knight;Sahar Abubucker

10953
Citations
Global patterns of 16S rRNA diversity at a depth of millions of sequences per sample

J. Gregory Caporaso;Christian L. Lauber;William A. Walters;Donna Berg-Lyons

10193
Citations
Ultra-high-throughput microbial community analysis on the Illumina HiSeq and MiSeq platforms

J. Gregory Caporaso;Christian L Lauber;William A. Walters;Donna Berg-Lyons

9461
Citations
Predictive functional profiling of microbial communities using 16S rRNA marker gene sequences

Morgan G I Langille;Jesse Zaneveld;J Gregory Caporaso;J Gregory Caporaso;Daniel McDonald

9406
Citations
A core gut microbiome in obese and lean twins

Peter J. Turnbaugh;Micah Hamady;Tanya Yatsunenko;Brandi L. Cantarel

9253
Citations
Human gut microbiome viewed across age and geography

Tanya Yatsunenko;Federico E Rey;Mark J Manary;Mark J Manary;Indi Trehan;Indi Trehan

8604
Citations
UniFrac: a New Phylogenetic Method for Comparing Microbial Communities

Catherine Lozupone;Rob Knight

8186
Citations
Linking Long-Term Dietary Patterns with Gut Microbial Enterotypes

Gary D. Wu;Jun Chen;Christian Hoffmann;Christian Hoffmann;Kyle Bittinger

7336
Citations
The human microbiome project.

Peter J. Turnbaugh;Ruth E. Ley;Micah Hamady;Claire M. Fraser-Liggett

6675
Citations
Optimizing taxonomic classification of marker-gene amplicon sequences with QIIME 2’s q2-feature-classifier plugin

Nicholas A. Bokulich;Benjamin D. Kaehler;Jai Ram Rideout;Matthew Dillon

5638
Citations
Diversity, stability and resilience of the human gut microbiota

Catherine A. Lozupone;Jesse I. Stombaugh;Jeffrey I. Gordon;Janet K. Jansson

5365
Citations
An improved Greengenes taxonomy with explicit ranks for ecological and evolutionary analyses of bacteria and archaea

Daniel McDonald;Morgan N Price;Julia Goodrich;Julia Goodrich;Eric P Nawrocki

5189
Citations
Delivery mode shapes the acquisition and structure of the initial microbiota across multiple body habitats in newborns

Maria G. Dominguez-Bello;Elizabeth K. Costello;Elizabeth K. Costello;Monica Contreras;Magda Magris

5169
Citations
Soil bacterial and fungal communities across a pH gradient in an arable soil.

Johannes Rousk;Erland Bååth;Philip C Brookes;Christian L Lauber

4380
Citations
Gut Microbiota from Twins Discordant for Obesity Modulate Metabolism in Mice

Vanessa K. Ridaura;Jeremiah J. Faith;Federico E. Rey;Jiye Cheng

4302
Citations
Pyrosequencing-based assessment of soil pH as a predictor of soil bacterial community structure at the continental scale.

Christian L. Lauber;Micah Hamady;Rob Knight;Noah Fierer;Noah Fierer

4228
Citations
Evolution of mammals and their gut microbes

Ruth E. Ley;Micah Hamady;Catherine Lozupone;Catherine Lozupone;Peter J. Turnbaugh

3947
Citations