“It feels like I’ve lived a decade within one year,” Akiko Iwasaki says. “The pandemic has definitely changed the way we do science.”
In the midst of a global health crisis, the professor of immunology at Yale University has been a trusted voice of reason. Iwasaki has become known for breaking down complex science to deliver accessible messages to the public and the media, dispelling myths and publishing leading research on SARS-CoV-2.
The Iwasaki lab, which the Japanese-born scientist set up 20 years ago, shifted its research focus when COVID-19 struck and has been working around the clock ever since.