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The research is not repetitive. Each day he had to come up with a new way to look at and tackle the question at hand. He works collaboratively and creatively with his peers to develop methods that have never been done before. This loosely fits with my definition of the creative process. Though he does not explicitly say in this interview, I assume that with the daily ideas came daily trial and errors. He does not illuminate and any failures or struggles he had to overcome, but I also think that may be because he 1) never see an unsuccessful attempt as a failure and 2) enjoys the struggles of his work.

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Science & SciLifeLab Prize 2013-Gabriel Victora

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First runner-up in Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists 2013, Gabriel Victora. The Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists is a new global prize, established in 2013, aimed at rewarding young scientists at an early stage of their careers.

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Mr. Victora holds four different degrees: B.M., M.M. M.Sci, and Ph.D. He has worked extensively in labs holding a fellowship at Whitehead Institute at M.I.T. fro 212-2016 and is currently working as head of the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Dynamics at Rockefeller University. While he definitely educated, I have not been able to see in my research if he ever took any "risks". I did find however that he had a lot of passion for his research and this intrinsic motivation is typical of creative people.

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Gabriel Victora is an immunologist investigating acquired, or adaptive, immunity and clarifying the mechanisms by which organisms' responses to infection are improved. Victora has reconfigured and refined a number of molecular and cellular imaging methods in order to visualize, in real time, affinity maturation-the process through which adaptive immunity develops.

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Geotracking technology and its implications

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Geotracking technology and its implications

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Human health is threatened by exposure to infectious diseases. In order to ensure the survival of the species, we have identified and studied the possible biological threats in our environment and developed methods in which to manage these organisms. Mr. Victora decided to look to the human body for answers and figure out how we can manipulate our immune system to better protect ourselves. He developed a novel mouse model in combination with a geotracking system to visualize the Darwinian evolution of antibodies. This evolution had been theorized but never proven before. Further understanding of the mechanisms involved could lead to new more effective vaccines and treatment for autoimmune disorders. This is a perfect example of a creative product.

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his year's crop of MacArthur "geniuses" included artists, writers, computer scientists - and one biomedical researcher: Gabriel Victora, an immunologist who's studying how our bodies respond to foreign invaders.

Victora - who runs an immunology research lab at Rockefeller University in New York City - didn't pick up the phone the first time the folks at MacArthur tried to call to notify him he'd won the award. Nor did he pick up the second time his phone rang, or the third. He was sitting in on a seminar.

His reaction when he finally got the message: "You've got to be kidding."

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Each of the 24 winners of the prize, which is granted annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, receives a $625,000 award over five years as an "investment in their potential."

STAT chatted with Victora about his work, its applications, and the moment he found out he'd been dubbed a genius.

Tell me about your research.

We study how it is that antibodies become such great binders, how they bind so strongly to the target antigens [or foreign substances]. They don't start like that. They start really poorly the first time they encounter a substance that triggers an antibody response. There's an evolutionary selection happening in our bodies every day, all the time, at the level of individual cells. The B cells mutate their own genomes, and if that mutation makes them a little bit better at responding, that cell is selected to proliferate.

It's sort of a Darwinian evolution: When you make random mutations and then select the best ones, you end up with a cellular population that's better than when it started.

Where does that process occur?

It happens in germinal centers, which are these little structures that form inside lymph nodes or tonsils when you get exposed to an infection or a vaccination or something like that. That's where the B cells go to do this evolutionary process. They start to mutate, are selected, and proliferate. They do this for weeks or months. And the B cells that go out should be better than the ones that came in.

The centers are stimulus-dependent. In places where you're not stimulated by antigens very often, like your skin, there aren't many. They're always in places like your tonsils and your intestines. But if you step on a nail, you're gonna get these forming in the lymph node that drains that area.

What's innovative about your approach?

The thing that distinguishes our work is the use of both mouse model techniques and imaging. So we actually see the cells in the process of doing these things. We can almost visualize this evolutionary process happening.

The citation for the prize said that we provided some of the strongest data yet for the evolutionary process. I think many, many people contributed to that. We were just some part of it.

What are the applications of your research?

What we are understanding better now is how this process happens and how it shapes the antibody response that comes after pathogens. So hopefully by knowing these things, we'll be better at targeting things like vaccinations.

One field we interact with quite a bit is lymphoma research. When B cells are making mutations and proliferating very rapidly in these germinal centers, they're behaving a little bit like lymphoma would, but it's sort of an under-control lymphoma. Most B cell lymphomas originate from the B cells making these mutations.

What was it like to find out you'd won?

It was very interesting. I got called by this funny number from Chicago in the middle of a seminar I was attending. I called them back, and they said, "Are you in a place where you can speak without anybody hearing you?" When they told me, I said, "You've gotta be kidding." I had to keep it to myself for a few agonizing weeks.

The prize came to me but it's all work I did together with many people. They should be acknowledged.

What do you want to do with the prize money?

I don't know yet. I am just coming to grips with it.

About the Author

Reporter, Morning Rounds Writer

Megan writes the Morning Rounds newsletter and covers health and medicine.

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Meet the MacArthur 'genius' tracking the evolution of our cells

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his year's crop of MacArthur "geniuses" included artists, writers, computer scientists - and one biomedical researcher: Gabriel Victora, an immunologist who's studying how our bodies respond to foreign invaders. Victora - who runs an immunology research lab at Rockefeller University in New York City - didn't pick up the phone the first time the folks at MacArthur tried to call to notify him he'd won the award.

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He is an Immunologist that investigates the mechanisms by which organisms’ antibody-based responses to infection develop. For his creativity in this field, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2017.

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1. Creative persons are educated people open to taking risks and going against the grain.
2. Creative products meet a social need by utilizing what is already available and spur future thought.
3. The creative process consists of trial, error, failure, and struggle

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"a great artist is but a conduit for an expression that resonates with something that is greater than him or herself" Khalil Gibran "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself."