For this article, Steve Bunk interviewed Tak W. Mak, medical biophysics professor, Ontario Cancer Institute, University of Toronto. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that Hot Papers are cited 50 to 100 times more often than the average paper of the same type and age.

R. Hakem, A. Hakem, G.S. Duncan, J.T. Henderson, M. Woo, M.S. Soengas, A. Elia, J.L. de la Pompa, D. Kagi, W. Khoo, J. Potter, R. Yoshida, S.A. Kaufman, S.W. Lowe, J.M. Penninger, T.W. Mak, "Differential requirement for Caspase 9 in apoptotic pathways in vivo," Cell, 94:339-52, Aug. 7, 1998. (Cited in more than 190 papers since publication)

Understanding caspases, enzymes that cleave proteins, is essential to tailoring drug treatments for diseases associated with dysfunctions in the intricately regulated process of apoptosis, or programmed cell death. "What we at the lab started off addressing was really a triology," says University of Toronto...

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