brodsky's research has focused on quantum chromodynamics, which is the theory describing the strong interactions between quarks and gluons. his 1973 paper co-authored with glennys r. farrar, "scaling laws at large transverse momentum" ("phys. rev. lett." 31, 1153–1156), and 1980 paper with peter lepage, "exclusive processes in perturbative quantum chromodynamics" ("phys. rev. d" 22, 2157–2198), led to the award of the sakurai prize.