In addition to work in computational biology (which theoretically should be more easily reproducible than "wet lab" work), hallmark papers in cancer through to psychology have been flagged as largely unreproducible [ 2, 3].
In their original "hallmarks" paper — the most cited in the history of Cell — Dr. Hanahan and Dr. Weinberg gathered a bonanza of emerging research and synthesized it into six characteristics.
Both he and his brother (and co-founder) Neel Palrecha wanted to use the growing popularity of online crowd-sourcing, he said, to breathe new life into the Hallmark-led paper products industry.
Extensive political coverage was a hallmark of the paper throughout the 20th century, and remains so today.
In their follow-up paper, "Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation," he and Dr. Hanahan cited two "emerging hallmarks" that future research may show to be crucial to malignancy — the ability of an aberrant cell to reprogram its metabolism to feed its wildfire growth and to evade destruction by the immune system.
Recently, the same authors have published an interesting follow-up paper, "Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation" [ 2], where their description of cancer development and growth was modified and "up-dated".
Our understanding of cancer as a disease process has evolved tremendously over the centuries, culminating in the late 20th century with the discovery of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes and subsequent understanding of carcinogenesis as it is depicted in the classic hallmarks of cancer paper by Hanahan and Weinberg [ 1].
O'Sullivan earned his reputation on Kelvin MacKenzie's Sun, where he was involved in the famous "Freddie Starr ate my hamster" stunt, which was one of the paper's hallmark splashes under the legendary editor.
These basic principles — laid out 11 years ago in a landmark paper, "The Hallmarks of Cancer," by Douglas Hanahan and Robert A. Weinberg, and revisited in a follow-up article this year — still serve as the reigning paradigm, a kind of Big Bang theory for the field.
The common hallmark of recently published papers referring to functional genomics is their enthusiastic tone on expectations.
