Bibliometric analyses are viewed as a proxy marker of a papers influence and therefore an analysis of the most influential papers published in recent decades. This study is a citation analysis of the top 100 most cited papers in transplantation. We hypothesized that the field of transplantation could serve as an exemplar model of an area in which advancement of the specialty could be heavily attributed to translational research. This paper represents the first use of this technique of bibliometric analysis in the context of transplantation as a whole and also to subdivide the top cited papers within the field according to clinical versus scientific origin. Papers ranking in the top 100 were published in 16 journals. A total of 48 of the top 100 papers were scientific with 52 clinical. The majority of the top cited papers (67) originated in the USA and were published between 2000 and 2009. The New England Journal of Medicine published the majority of the top 100 papers in transplantation (24), followed by Transplantation (21) and Nature (18). This article provides a valuable perspective on this field by outlining the key publications and highlighting the importance of translational research in advancing the progress.