Marking the end of one year and the beginning of another is often symbolized wiping the slate clean; retrospection, reorganization, and goal-setting are common themes at this time. To Nature, 2011 means a "new year, new science." In the next 12 months, the journal's staff expects "GWAS [to] prove their worth" as well as a "genome-sequencing explosion." Nature also predicts that in 2011, "patient-derived iPS cells will increasingly be used as models for studying medical conditions … [and] will also be used to screen potential drugs, and to probe why existing drugs help some patients but not others."
In addition, the New Scientist says that the upcoming year will mark a "crunch time for stem cells," and that two upcoming hESC trials may prove these cells' worth as reliable tools for treatments.
Over at Book of Trogol, Dorothea says that she expects 2011 to be a "challenging year" for the open access movement, though she predicts an increase in crowd-sourced data-analysis projects, and that these efforts will "pick up more good press."
Bitesize Bio's Emily Crow pledges to "update my lab notebook every day" in 2011. Among her other New Year's resolutions for the lab, she says she'll begin writing tasks "more than one week before deadline," and will also keep up on new papers "as they come out, instead of putting them in a pile to 'get to later.'" Similarly, Prodigal Academic promises to keep up on the current literature in her field and dedicate one day a week to writing only. She also aims to network outside of her specialty and "apply to at least two new ... funding agencies this year."