Night Science 77 | Akiko Iwasaki and the art of creativity maintenance
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Sep 22, 2025 Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale immunology professor and Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2024, dives into the nuances of research collaboration and creativity. She describes how diverse backgrounds enhance scientific inquiry and shares insights on managing expectations in large teams. With a clever multi-layered puzzle analogy, she illustrates the complexities of studying viruses and long COVID. Akiko emphasizes a patient-driven approach to uncover core issues while fostering a lab culture that encourages unique hypotheses. Her reflections on training abroad highlight the importance of resilience in research.
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Start From Medical Necessity
- Akiko frames research around helping people who suffer and chooses problems by medical necessity.
- She breaks complex, heterogeneous diseases to core components to make progress.
Find A Core Within The Mess
- Akiko uses the 'hairball' metaphor to describe messy, heterogeneous diseases and looks for hidden core signals.
- She starts by imagining a core cause and builds outward, then revises if data contradicts it.
Test Multiple Root Hypotheses
- Akiko evaluates several root-cause hypotheses and abandons ones without supporting evidence.
- She notes many scientists cling to favored ideas despite contradictory data.