In Client successes

Reading between the (Genetic) Lines: How Epigenetics is Unlocking Novel Therapies for Type 1 Diabetes

Congratulations to Ammira-Sarah Akil and colleagues at Sidra Medicine on the publication of their latest review in Cells (MDPI)! In their article, Akil et al. outline the key epigenetic modifications associated with type 1 diabetes pathogenesis. They then speculate on how we might harness such epigenetic mechanisms to develop novel therapeutics.

To learn more about this fascinating topic, this review is available open access via the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/9/11/2403/htm

In Blog

Authoring a review article is a great way to stand out as a key opinion leader in your field. What’s more, it’s an opportunity to flex your scientific writing skills. But writing a non-commissioned review can be a daunting task. In this series of three blog posts, I will take you through IEL’s top tips and tricks to perfecting your pitch to your target journal.

 

In this first post, I am going to focus on selecting your review topic. It might seem obvious to write about your area of expertise that you have honed over the past few years, but it’s essential that you offer something new and up-to-date to your prospective readership. If similar reviews are already available, you dilute your potential to be cited.

 

You stand a good chance of finding a novel area to cover if you do not think too broadly. For example, writing about the genetic mechanisms of cancer will likely overlap with hundreds of other reviews. But if you narrow down your mechanistic pathway and cancer type, you might start to find interesting gaps in the review literature.

 

Once you have narrowed down your list of ideas, you should conduct a thorough scan of the published literature covering the past 3-4 years as a priority. Find what relevant, new primary data have been published. Ask yourself, if new data are lacking, is now the right time for this review article? If, however, the field has taken steps forward over the past few years, then take time to decide which studies you will summarize, interpret and speculate on.

 

While you won’t be able to cover everything in detail, you should still try to capture the full spectrum of the field and give fair attention to conflicting and contrasting opinions — even if they differ from your own. The list you compile now will start to form your review’s bibliography. A good rule of thumb is to ensure that at least 80% of the cited literature was published within the past five years, with 50% from the previous two years, and that your bibliography predominantly comprises primary sources.

Next up: Pitching for Success

In Training

We’re visiting Brno, Czech Republic in October 2019 to deliver a seminar and to teach at FNUSA ICRC.  Would you like to meet us for an informal chat about our editing services, or to book a half hour surgery and discuss your latest draft with a specialised editor for free?  Contact us for more information.

In News

Congratulations to our course attendee and client Daan Pieran and his colleagues at The Centre for Infectious Disease Control in The Netherlands on the successful publication of their latest paper ‘Response kinetics reveal novel features of ageing in murine T cells’ in Scientific Reports.

In their article Pieren et al use the murine system to call into question the long-held belief that T cells become globally unresponsive during the ageing of the organism.  Their data instead suggest that the kinetics of activation market and cytokine expression, and of proliferation, are differently affected during ageing.

We’re looking forward to seeing the follow up data from this great study!

In Blog

We’re finalising plans to visit client institutes in several major European cities in 2020 – would you like us to come and speak at your university or research institute?  We also offer complimentary one-to-one manuscript surgeries during our visits.  Contact us to register your interest.