The rich rewards
of a steep learning curve

Gissette Reyes–Soffer spent the first four months of her postdoctoral fellowship in Henry N. Ginsberg’s lab pipetting lipoproteins by the bubbling method, a technique that is crucial for accurate and consistent results, while Ginsberg watched over her shoulder, making a 20-minute process feel like it was taking hours.

He had reason to be watchful. At the time, Reyes–Soffer had no previous lab experience. After earning an M.D. in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she moved to the U.S. She joined Ginsberg’s lab at the Columbia University Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research in 2004. The early stage of her transition to translational research came with a steep learning curve, she recalls. Bench work required persistence, which she had.

Reyes–Soffer is now an assistant professor in the department of medicine in the division of preventive medicine and nutrition with her own lab at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, mostly involved in clinical and translational research. Medical school satisfied the human aspect of her interest in health, while research has given her a solid career path to inquire into disease states and mechanisms that regulate them.

“When an experiment in the lab gives us expected results, we smile big,” she said. “When it gives us unexpected results, we smile broader. This means we need to come up with a new hypothesis and find new answers to the problem.”

Ginsberg mentored Reyes–Soffer for 15 years, from postdoctoral fellow to R01-funded assistant professor. “What has remained constant is her enthusiasm for research, which is only exceeded by her boundless energy and determination to be a successful, independent investigator,” he said. “These characteristics, which are not uncommon in academics, are combined with her concern for the success of her colleagues and her own trainees and, most importantly, a ‘glass is full’ love of life that makes working with her a joy.”