For this article, Brendan A. Maher interviewed Eric S. Lander, director, Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research, Cambridge, Mass., and J. Craig Venter, then president and chief scientific officer, Celera Genomics Group, Rockville, Md. 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.

J.C. Venter et al., "The sequence of the human genome, Science, 291:1304-51, Feb.16, 2001. (Cited in 533 papers)

E.S. Lander et al., "Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome," Nature, 409: 860-921 Feb. 15, 2001. (Cited in 667 papers)


At the time, it attracted enough media attention to rival the cloning of "Dolly;" today, the analyses of two human genome drafts, published in February 2001, are attracting an extraordinary number of citations. As of mid-January, the work of privately controlled Celera Genomics, published...

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