According to an annual analysis by Thomson Reuters, scientists, who discovered the technology known as CRISPR-Cas9, allowing researchers to edit virtually any gene they target, are one of the top contenders for Nobel prizes coming month.

The Intellectual Property & Science unit of Thomson Reuters, which is also the owner of the Reuters news service, announced the predictions on Thursday. The unit had correctly identified 37 scientists since 2002, who later become Nobel laureates, though not particularly in the year in which they were predicted.

IP&S, seller of data, has made its predictions on the basis of number of times work of a scientist has been cited by others in published papers.

Citations can reflect the influence of a study, but at the same time, can serve as a way of measuring a scientist's standing. Reputation counts since Nobel nominations come from past winners and top most scientists.

The ones who have been selected as 'Citation Laureates' rank were in top 1% of citations in their study areas. Christopher King, an analyst with IP&S who helped in the selection of winners, said, "That is a signpost that the research wielded a lot of impact".

The scientists, who have been predicted as winners for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry include Emmanuelle Charpentier of Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Germany and Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley. The unit picked them for their creation of the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing.