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Throughout the last 2 decades, several scholars observed that present day research into human genes rarely turns toward genes that had not already been extensively investigated in the past. Guided by hypotheses derived from studies of science and innovation, we present here a literature-wide data-driven meta-analysis to identify the specific scientific and organizational contexts that coincided with early-stage research into human genes throughout the past half century. We demonstrate that early-stage research into human genes differs in team size, citation impact, funding mechanisms, and publication outlet, but that generalized insights derived from studies of science and innovation only partially apply to early-stage research into human genes. Further, we demonstrate that, presently, genome biology accounts for most of the initial early-stage research, while subsequent early-stage research can engage other life sciences fields. We therefore anticipate that the specificity of our findings will enable scientists and policymakers to better promote early-stage research into human genes and increase overall innovation within the life sciences. 

It is known that research into human genes is heavily skewed towards genes that have been widely studied for decades, including many genes that were being studied before the productive phase of the Human Genome Project. This means that the genes most frequently investigated by the research community tend to be only marginally more important to human physiology and disease than a random selection of genes. Based on an analysis of 10,395 research publications about SARS-CoV-2 that mention at least one human gene, we report here that the COVID-19 literature up to mid-October 2020 follows a similar pattern. This means that a large number of host genes that have been implicated in SARS-CoV-2 infection by four genome-wide studies remain unstudied. While quantifying the consequences of this neglect is not possible, they could be significant.