Johan Elf

11.1k total citations · 2 hit papers
89 papers, 7.4k citations indexed

About

Johan Elf is a scholar working on Molecular Biology, Genetics and Biophysics. According to data from OpenAlex, Johan Elf has authored 89 papers receiving a total of 7.4k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 73 papers in Molecular Biology, 35 papers in Genetics and 22 papers in Biophysics. Recurrent topics in Johan Elf's work include Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology (32 papers), RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms (26 papers) and Gene Regulatory Network Analysis (25 papers). Johan Elf is often cited by papers focused on Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology (32 papers), RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms (26 papers) and Gene Regulatory Network Analysis (25 papers). Johan Elf collaborates with scholars based in Sweden, United States and Estonia. Johan Elf's co-authors include Måns Ehrenberg, David Fange, Gene‐Wei Li, Xiao Xie, Otto G. Berg, Arvid H. Gynnå, Özden Baltekin, Fredrik Persson, Anel Mahmutovic and Martin Lindén and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Cell.

In The Last Decade

Johan Elf

87 papers receiving 7.3k citations

Hit Papers

Probing Transcription Factor Dynamics at the Single-Molec... 2007 2026 2013 2019 2007 2016 250 500 750
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. Probing Transcription Factor Dynamics at the Single-Molecule Level in a Living Cell
    2007 826 citations Johan Elf et al. Science profile →
  2. Nanometer resolution imaging and tracking of fluorescent molecules with minimal photon fluxes
    2016 800 citations Arvid H. Gynnå, Johan Elf et al. Science profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Johan Elf Sweden 37 5.5k 2.3k 1.6k 894 827 89 7.4k
Mark C. Leake United Kingdom 37 3.6k 0.7× 1.1k 0.5× 1.1k 0.7× 780 0.9× 507 0.6× 128 5.3k
Måns Ehrenberg Sweden 64 11.1k 2.0× 4.2k 1.8× 472 0.3× 280 0.3× 1.2k 1.4× 189 12.5k
Christine Jacobs‐Wagner United States 44 4.8k 0.9× 3.4k 1.5× 563 0.3× 444 0.5× 1.8k 2.2× 89 7.1k
Gene‐Wei Li United States 25 6.9k 1.3× 2.3k 1.0× 718 0.4× 464 0.5× 853 1.0× 42 7.9k
Achillefs N. Kapanidis United Kingdom 41 4.6k 0.8× 1.4k 0.6× 1.9k 1.2× 567 0.6× 801 1.0× 122 5.9k
Judith P. Armitage United Kingdom 52 5.8k 1.1× 2.9k 1.3× 339 0.2× 1.2k 1.4× 1.5k 1.8× 175 8.7k
Jie Xiao United States 31 2.5k 0.5× 1.3k 0.6× 620 0.4× 314 0.4× 656 0.8× 116 3.9k
Johan Paulsson United States 35 6.4k 1.2× 2.9k 1.3× 861 0.5× 699 0.8× 503 0.6× 57 7.4k
Mark Goulian United States 44 4.5k 0.8× 2.0k 0.9× 288 0.2× 612 0.7× 783 0.9× 103 6.9k
Ido Golding United States 32 3.6k 0.7× 1.6k 0.7× 649 0.4× 664 0.7× 699 0.8× 70 5.3k

Countries citing papers authored by Johan Elf

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Johan Elf's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Johan Elf with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Johan Elf more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Johan Elf

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Johan Elf. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Johan Elf. The network helps show where Johan Elf may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Johan Elf

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Johan Elf. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Johan Elf based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Johan Elf. Johan Elf is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Soares, Ruben R. G., Jimmy Larsson, David Fange, et al.. (2025). Pooled optical screening in bacteria using chromosomally expressed barcodes. Communications Biology. 8(1). 851–851.
2.
Elf, Johan, et al.. (2025). Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells. Nature Communications. 16(1). 764–764. 1 indexed citations
3.
Spoel, David van der, et al.. (2023). Can molecular dynamics be used to simulate biomolecular recognition?. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 158(18). 3 indexed citations
4.
Brandis, Gerrit, Jimmy Larsson, & Johan Elf. (2023). Antibiotic perseverance increases the risk of resistance development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 120(2). e2216216120–e2216216120. 28 indexed citations
5.
Marklund, Emil, et al.. (2022). Sequence specificity in DNA binding is mainly governed by association. Science. 375(6579). 442–445. 30 indexed citations
6.
Elf, Johan, et al.. (2022). Conformational Change of Transcription Factors from Search to Specific Binding: A lac Repressor Case Study. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 126(48). 9971–9984. 7 indexed citations
7.
Lawson, Michael J. & Johan Elf. (2021). Imaging-based screens of pool-synthesized cell libraries. Nature Methods. 18(4). 358–365. 14 indexed citations
8.
Camsund, Daniel, Michael J. Lawson, Jimmy Larsson, et al.. (2019). Time-resolved imaging-based CRISPRi screening. Nature Methods. 17(1). 86–92. 58 indexed citations
9.
Lawson, Michael J., Daniel Camsund, Jimmy Larsson, et al.. (2017). In situ genotyping of a pooled strain library after characterizing complex phenotypes. Molecular Systems Biology. 13(10). 947–947. 50 indexed citations
10.
Jones, Daniel, Prune Leroy, Cecilia Unoson, et al.. (2017). Kinetics of dCas9 target search in Escherichia coli. Science. 357(6358). 1420–1424. 126 indexed citations
11.
Doudna, Jennifer A., Roy Bar‐Ziv, Johan Elf, et al.. (2017). How Will Kinetics and Thermodynamics Inform Our Future Efforts to Understand and Build Biological Systems?. Cell Systems. 4(2). 144–146. 5 indexed citations
12.
Lindén, Martin, et al.. (2017). Pointwise error estimates in localization microscopy. Nature Communications. 8(1). 15115–15115. 35 indexed citations
13.
Jones, Daniel, et al.. (2017). Kinetics of dCas9 Target Search in Escherichia Coli. Biophysical Journal. 112(3). 314a–314a. 3 indexed citations
14.
Elf, Johan. (2016). Hypothesis: Homologous Recombination Depends on Parallel Search. Cell Systems. 3(4). 325–327. 2 indexed citations
15.
Persson, Fredrik, et al.. (2014). Single-particle tracking reveals that free ribosomal subunits are not excluded from the Escherichia coli nucleoid. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 111(31). 11413–11418. 139 indexed citations
16.
Hammar, Petter, Prune Leroy, Anel Mahmutovic, et al.. (2012). The lac Repressor Displays Facilitated Diffusion in Living Cells. Science. 336(6088). 1595–1598. 309 indexed citations
17.
English, Brian P., et al.. (2011). Single-molecule investigations of the stringent response machinery in living bacterial cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108(31). E365–73. 216 indexed citations
18.
Elf, Johan, Daniel Nilsson, Tanel Tenson, & Måns Ehrenberg. (2003). Selective Charging of tRNA Isoacceptors Explains Patterns of Codon Usage. Science. 300(5626). 1718–1722. 195 indexed citations
19.
Elf, Johan & Måns Ehrenberg. (2003). Fast Evaluation of Fluctuations in Biochemical Networks With the Linear Noise Approximation. Genome Research. 13(11). 2475–2484. 274 indexed citations
20.
Pedersen, Kim Brint, Andrey V. Zavialov, Michael Y. Pavlov, et al.. (2003). The Bacterial Toxin RelE Displays Codon-Specific Cleavage of mRNAs in the Ribosomal A Site. Cell. 112(1). 131–140. 449 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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