The Top Cited Research Publications of 2026

In the academic landscape, citation counts function as a real-time ledger of scientific attention. While field-normalized tools like Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) are essential for long-term career benchmarking, tracking raw citation velocity over a single calendar year highlights immediate shifts in global research priorities.

As of mid-2026, several high-impact medical guidelines, breakthroughs in generative artificial intelligence, and foundational materials science papers have established massive leads in citation accumulation. This report explores these frontrunners and analyzes the macroeconomic trends shaping this year's scientific output.

Directing the Spotlight: What Drives Early Citation Velocity?

When a paper accumulates dozens of citations within mere months of its publication, it typically falls into one of three high-velocity categories: 1. Clinical Practice Guidelines: Documents issued by major organizations (like the American Heart Association) that immediately become the baseline reference for thousands of clinical trials and medical papers globally. 2. Foundational Dataset or Model Releases: Structural AI models, genome design tools, or benchmarking datasets that subsequent researchers must cite as they build derivative technology. 3. Annual Statistical Compendiums: Industry-standard data reports that serve as the default introductory citation for grant proposals and literature reviews.

Top 100 Most Cited Publications in 2026

The following curated index outlines the top-performing research outputs published and cited over the course of 2026, indexed via bibliometric monitoring platforms like Publimetra.

Rank	Paper	Journal	Citations
1	Cancer statistics, 2026	CA A Cancer Journal for Clinicians	135
2	Advancing regulatory variant effect prediction with AlphaGenome	Nature	109
3	Nothing to See Here? A Non‐Inferiority Approach to Parallel Trends	Statistics in Medicine	103
4	Pharmacotherapy for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)	Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews	97
5	Magnetic, thermal and rotational evolution of isolated neutron stars	Living Reviews in Computational Astrophysics	95
6	2026 Guideline for the Early Management of Patients With Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Guideline From the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association	Stroke	93
7	Hallmarks of cancer—Then and now, and beyond	Cell	75
8	Weight regain after cessation of medication for weight management: systematic review and meta-analysis	BMJ	72
9	2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics: A Report of US and Global Data From the American Heart Association	Circulation	67
10	Chemical characterization, antioxidant properties, and volatile constituents of naranjilla (Solanum quitoense Lam.) cultivated in Costa Rica	Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición	53
11	Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus	Nature	50
12	Genome modelling and design across all domains of life with Evo 2	Nature	47
13	2026 ACC/AHA/AACVPR/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia	Journal of the American College of Cardiology	42
14	GLP-1 receptor agonists and next-generation incretin-based medications: metabolic, cardiovascular, and renal benefits	The Lancet	40
15	2026 AHA/ACC/ACCP/ACEP/CHEST/SCAI/SHM/SIR/SVM/SVN Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of Acute Pulmonary Embolism in Adults	Journal of the American College of Cardiology	40
16	Reliability of LLMs as medical assistants for the general public: a randomized preregistered study	Nature Medicine	39
17	Quartz-enhanced laser spectroscopy sensing	Light Science & Applications	38
18	Brain tumor segmentation in Sub-Saharan Africa patient population: The BraTS-Africa challenge	Neuro-Oncology Advances	36
19	Fe–N ₃ S Single-Atom Nanozyme with Asymmetric Coordination for Ultra-Low-Background Colorimetric Immunoassays	Analytical Chemistry	35
20	PDX1 phosphorylation at S61 by mTORC1 links nutrient signaling to β cell function and metabolic disease	Cell Reports	35
21	S-Scheme CdS/CuWO ₄ Heterojunction Optimizes Reaction Kinetics for Enhanced Photocatalytic H ₂ Evolution	Langmuir	34
22	The AI risk repository: A meta-review, database, and taxonomy of risks from artificial intelligence	Patterns	32
23	Vacuum ultraviolet second-harmonic generation in NH4B4O6F crystal	Nature	32
24	2026 ACC/AHA/AACVPR/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines	Circulation	32
25	Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence	Science	32
26	Artificial intelligence-driven approaches for materials design and discovery	Nature Materials	31
27	Updated description of cerebral palsy	Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology	31
28	Polydopamine-functionalized cellulose nanofibrils with Ag deposition for robust poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel strain sensor	International Journal of Biological Macromolecules	31
29	Generalist foundation models from a multimodal dataset for 3D computed tomography	Nature Biomedical Engineering	30
30	Designing MOF-Cellulose Bio-Aerogels for Electromagnetic Management and Fire-Acoustic Safety	Research	30
31	Gastric Cancer	JAMA	30
32	Nano Bifunctional Catalysts as Miniaturized Chemical Processes for CO _x -to-Aromatics Conversion	Accounts of Chemical Research	30
33	Towards end-to-end automation of AI research	Nature	30
34	Little red dots as young supermassive black holes in dense ionized cocoons	Nature	29
35	Perioperative Enfortumab Vedotin and Pembrolizumab in Bladder Cancer	New England Journal of Medicine	29
36	How does organizational AI adoption affect employees’ job crafting behaviors? An approach-avoidance perspective	Frontiers in Psychology	28
37	MaAsLin 3: refining and extending generalized multivariable linear models for meta-omic association discovery	Nature Methods	28
38	Surface and Interfacial Engineering of Electrocatalysts for Seawater Electrolysis	Accounts of Chemical Research	28
39	Executive Summary: Surviving Sepsis Campaign: International Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2026	Critical Care Medicine	28
40	Prevalence of Cannabis Use around the World: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, 2000-2024	China CDC Weekly	27
41	Deep Time Series Models: A Comprehensive Survey and Benchmark	IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence	27
42	CD19 CAR-T cells for treatment-refractory autoimmune diseases: the phase 1/2 CASTLE basket trial	Nature Medicine	27
43	The aryl hydrocarbon receptor: structure, signaling, physiology and pathology	Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy	27
44	Silver Nanoparticles in Antibacterial Research: Mechanisms, Applications, and Emerging Perspectives	International Journal of Molecular Sciences	27
45	Dynamic Interactions Between Hemispheres Reveal a Compensatory Pathway for Motor Recovery in Moderate-to-Severe Subcortical Stroke	Journal of Stroke	26
46	The Biology of Endosomal Escape: Strategies for Enhanced Delivery of Therapeutics	ACS Nano	26
47	Intelligent Tactile Perception Revolution: Innovations in Flexible FET‐Based Tactile Sensors for Next‐Gen Human–Machine Interfaces	Advanced Materials	26
48	A Placebo-Controlled Trial of the Oral PCSK9 Inhibitor Enlicitide	New England Journal of Medicine	26
49	I2I-Mamba: Multi-modal medical image synthesis via selective state space modeling	IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering	25
50	Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, the new name for polycystic ovary syndrome: a multistep global consensus process	The Lancet	25
51	Graph Transformers: A Survey	IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems	24
52	Mitophagy in the pathogenesis and management of disease	Cell Research	24
53	Sacituzumab Govitecan plus Pembrolizumab for Advanced Triple-Negative Breast Cancer	New England Journal of Medicine	24
54	Global and regional cancer burden attributable to modifiable risk factors to inform prevention	Nature Medicine	24
55	RSM-optimized Mg/Al-LDH biochar composite for enhanced phosphorus removal: Insights into interlayer structure evolution and adsorption mechanism	Journal of Environmental Management	24
56	80 years of extracellular vesicles: from discovery to clinical translation	Extracellular Vesicles and Circulating Nucleic Acids	24
57	Adversarial validation of in silico perturbation profiles for intelligence-associated genes in human prefrontal cortex	Computational Biology and Chemistry	24
58	Limiting phosphonic acid interlayer–perovskite reactivity to stabilize perovskite solar modules	Science	23
59	The Japanese Society of Hypertension Guidelines for the management of elevated blood pressure and hypertension 2025 (JSH2025)	Hypertension Research	23
60	Biology and therapeutic potential of extracellular vesicle targeting and uptake	Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology	23
61	AI-enabled virtual spatial proteomics from histopathology for interpretable biomarker discovery in lung cancer	Nature Medicine	23
62	An expanded registry of candidate cis-regulatory elements	Nature	23
63	Hydrophobic Interaction‐Directed Solvent‐Free Ambient‐Pressure‐Dried MXene Aerogels	Advanced Materials	23
64	Recent Progress on Flexible Multimodal Sensors: Decoupling Strategies, Fabrication and Applications	Advanced Materials	23
65	Diabetes and its complications: molecular mechanisms, prevention and treatment	Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy	23
66	Current-assisted dual-atom catalyst sequentially boosts low-temperature propane combustion through atomic relay	Nature Chemistry	23
67	Fecal microbiota transplantation plus immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma: the phase 2 FMT-LUMINate trial	Nature Medicine	23
68	Tumor diagnosis and therapy system based on covalent organic framework (COF): From sensing detection to synergistic treatment	Colloids and Surfaces B Biointerfaces	23
69	Pollution transfer and environmental health implications: network evolution and proximity mechanisms in the Yangtze River Delta, China	Frontiers in Public Health	23
70	Multi-objective machine learning for health-oriented O3 and PM2.5 control: Integrating VOC photochemical consumption and source apportionment	Journal of Hazardous Materials	23
71	Janus Mn single atoms for triggering efficient photothermal catalytic CO ₂ methanation through spin polarization effect	Science Advances	22
72	Interface Matters: Boosting Efficient Pb‐Sn Perovskite Solar Cells for All‐Perovskite Tandem Photovoltaics	Advanced Materials	22
73	Interfacial Evolution and Accelerated Aging Mechanism for LiFePO4/Graphite Pouch Batteries Under Multi-Step Indirect Activation	Nano-Micro Letters	22
74	Inflammatory bowel diseases: pathological mechanisms and therapeutic perspectives	Molecular Biomedicine	22
75	Deep Eutectic Solvents for Pretreatment of Lignocellulose Biomass: Physical Properties, Solubility Mechanisms, and Their Interactions	Chemical Reviews	22
76	Pesticide residues alter taxonomic and functional biodiversity in soils	Nature	22
77	Advances in Nanostructured Catalysts for Urea‐Assisted Water Splitting and Zn‐Urea Batteries	ChemSusChem	22
78	A Dual-Engine Artificial Intelligence Framework Accelerates Sustainable Aviation Fuel Component Synthesis	Journal of the American Chemical Society	22
79	Refrigeration down to 0.16 K using a frustrated magnet Gd2B2MoO9	Nature Communications	21
80	Tailored Metalloporphyrin-Based Three-Dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks for Enhanced Photocatalytic CO ₂ Reduction	Journal of the American Chemical Society	21
81	Exploring the Potential of Ni‐Based Hydrogen Evolution Catalysts in Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzer	Advanced Materials	21
82	Amyloid-β and Tau in Alzheimer’s disease: pathogenesis, mechanisms, and interplay	Cell Death and Disease	21
83	Cardiovascular Statistics in the United States, 2026	Journal of the American College of Cardiology	21
84	Designing heterostructured materials	Nature Materials	21
85	Six-Year Outcomes After Transcatheter vs Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement in Low-Risk Patients With Aortic Stenosis	Journal of the American College of Cardiology	21
86	2026 AHA/ACC/ACCP/ACEP/CHEST/SCAI/SHM/SIR/SVM/SVN Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of Acute Pulmonary Embolism in Adults: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines	Circulation	21
87	ChatGPT Health performance in a structured test of triage recommendations	Nature Medicine	21
88	Mapping plant cell-type-specific responses to environmental stresses	Trends in Plant Science	21
89	Extracellular GPX4 impairs antitumor immunity via dendritic ZP3 receptors	Cell	20
90	Boosting the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution of snowflake Cu2S/ZnWO4 through morphology control and construction of p-n heterojunction	Journal of Colloid and Interface Science	20
91	Nanoencapsulation of nutraceuticals: enhancing stability and bioavailability in functional foods	Frontiers in Nutrition	20
92	Optimization of the extraction of phenolic compounds from Eryngium caeruleum using ultrasound and nanoencapsulation of the resulting extract via spray drying and freeze drying	Food Chemistry	20
93	Artificially Magnetically Programmed Metamaterial Films for Enhanced Ultra‐Wideband Electromagnetic Response	Advanced Materials	20
94	Multiple protein structure alignment at scale with FoldMason	Science	20
95	Dietary Polyphenols (Flavonoids) Derived from Plants for Use in Therapeutic Health: Antioxidant Performance, ROS, Molecular Mechanisms, and Bioavailability Limitations	International Journal of Molecular Sciences	20
96	BRISC: Annotated Dataset for Brain Tumor Segmentation and Classification	Scientific Data	20
97	LLM-assisted systematic review of large language models in clinical medicine	Nature Medicine	20
98	Revitalizing T cells: breakthroughs and challenges in overcoming T cell exhaustion	Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy	19
99	Coordination Thermodynamic Control of Magnetic Domain Configuration Evolution toward Low-Frequency Electromagnetic Attenuation	Nano-Micro Letters	19
100	Cilta-cel in lenalidomide-refractory multiple myeloma (CARTITUDE-4): an updated analysis including overall survival from an open-label, multicentre, randomised, phase 3 trial	The Lancet Oncology	19

Dominant Research Themes of 2026

An analysis of the top-performing publications reveals three key areas commanding the lion's share of scientific attention this year:

1. Oncology and Metabolic Healthcare Trends

Unsurprisingly, oncology continues to lead absolute citation counts, with Cancer statistics, 2026 claiming the #1 spot. However, a major surge in citations centers around next-generation metabolic interventions—specifically GLP-1 receptor agonists (e.g., Rank 14) and the downstream clinical realities of weight management medications (e.g., Rank 8).

2. The AI Epistemological Shift

Artificial intelligence has transitioned from a localized tech topic to a foundational layer of global science. Two papers in Nature capture this duality perfectly: while AI models are actively accelerating structural biology (AlphaGenome at #2 and Evo 2 at #12), sociologists and bibliometricians are simultaneously citing warnings regarding how AI tools might expand scientific output while narrowing the actual scope of breakthrough human focus (Rank 11).

3. Advanced Energy and Material Architectures

Material sciences are seeing immediate citation spikes in localized sub-fields, particularly regarding MXene aerogels, perovskite solar modules, and single-atom catalysts optimized for green hydrogen evolution. These materials serve as the structural engineering building blocks for zero-emission transitions, driving immediate cross-citations across chemical engineering departments.

Final Takeaway: Velocity vs. Volume

While raw citation counts provide a fascinating look at what scientists are actively reading and reacting to right now, they remain highly biased toward clinical medicine and computer science. For a more equitable analysis that balances these massive cross-disciplinary gaps, analytics platforms rely on the Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) frameworks to normalize these numbers against each field's unique baseline density.