  We present the first exact analytic result for all partonic channels
contributing to the total cross section for the production of a pair of heavy
flavors in hadronic collisions in NLO QCD. Our calculation is an essential step
in the derivation of the top quark pair production cross section at NNLO in
QCD, which is a cornerstone of the precision LHC program. Our results uncover
the analytical structures behind observables with heavy flavors at higher
orders. They also reveal surprising and non-trivial implications for kinematics
close to partonic threshold.
