My First Paper: Reecha Sofat

Posted on: 3 March 2022 in March 2022 posts

As part of our new initiative across the Faculty, we will be showcasing research and their researchers across the board engaging with the future generations of researchers. Our first researcher from ISMIB is Professor Reecha Sofat, telling us all about her first research paper.

What was the title of your first paper and who was it submitted to?

My first serious first author paper came from a side project during my PhD and is entitled “Separating the mechanism-based and off-target actions of cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitors with CETP gene polymorphisms.” Whilst it was eventually published in Circulation, it went through the hands of 3 other journals before that. It was a tough introduction in how publishing works. By the time it got out there, I think the whole submission and review and re-review process took longer than to do the analysis!

How would you explain what this paper was about to your grandparents?

I would tell her that we found a new way to test if the side effect of a drug was to do with a property of the drug that was not related to how the drug worked for the disease it was being used to treat

What was the most significant thing for you about that paper?

It represented a novel method of using a data science approach to understand off target effects of drugs

What advice would you give to others about submitting their first paper?

It is not about, or should not be about where you get it published, and it is a shame that rewards in science work that way. It is important for the research community to inch forward with every discovery and observation and we are all contributing to that, so don’t be disheartened but keep going as your work will seed the ideas of further research as well as contributing to your own. Now that pre-print services are available it is also one way of getting useful feedback on manuscripts as well as get results out in the public domain.

You can find Reecha's paper here.