At the frontline of COVID research: an interview with Akiko Iwasaki on her groundbreaking COVID projects and advocacy for women and minorities in STEM

Abstract

Professor Akiko Iwasaki’s research focuses on the mechanisms of immune defense against viruses at mucosal surfaces, which are a major site of entry for infectious agents. Professor Iwasaki received her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Toronto and completed her postdoctoral training with the National Institutes of Health before joining Yale’s faculty in 2000. She has received many awards and honors and has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2014. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. Professor Iwasaki is also well known for her Twitter advocacy of women and underrepresented minorities in the science and medicine fields. In addition, Professor Iwasaki co-directs the IMPACT (Implementing Medical and Public Health Actions against Coronavirus in Connecticut) team to generate an extensive biorepository for specimens collected from patients and health care workers, as well as implementing viral testing in both groups.