Night Science Institute Newsletter

Championing a cultural shift in science by training researchers to embrace the creative process.

Dr. Akiko Iwasaki delivers a great Night Science Seminar - missed it? no worries

Dear Colleague,

We launched the Night Science Seminar series back in the fall of 2025 for a specific reason: to bring the creative process into the spotlight alongside great science itself. Speakers in the series are asked to share one or more Night Science Moments, describing where an idea came from or how a project pivoted in a new direction. 

In our workshop we talk a lot about how day science dominates in public scientific discourse, and largely for good reason. The often chaotic path of scientific discovery doesn't make great reading, for one–check out a brief snippet of Itai discussing this during a recent talk. 

However, some acknowledgement of how ideas are developed for testing and of the twists and turns of a project can be helpful.

The other great feature of our seminar series is that it is presented on Cassyni.com which means that viewing the talks afterwards can be really interesting and fun. So if you missed yesterdays presentation by Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, don't worry - head on over to the site and take a look. 

Dr. Iwasaki's seminar discusses the novel strategies she has used to develop vaccines for genital herpes, focusing on the importance of eliciting robust local mucosal immunity. Professor Iwasaki highlights the critical role of tissue-resident memory T cells in protection and explains how a "prime and pull" strategy, along with new nanoparticle technology called BEACONs, can recruit these cells to the genital tract, offering significant protection against the virus. The research also delves into the mechanisms by which T cells facilitate antibody access to neural tissues, a key factor in preventing viral latency.

Dr. Iwasaki describes two "Night Science Moments" in the seminar:

• The realization that supplying chemokines alone into the vaginal tract could potentially bypass the need for CD4 T cells and antigen presentation to recruit and retain CD8 T cells (around minute 25). This led to the development of the "prime and pull" strategy.
• The hypothesis that CD4 T cells might control antibody access to neural tissues, enabling antibodies to block viral replication in the dorsal root ganglia (round minute 38). This insight explained why both T cells and antibodies were necessary for blocking HSV-2 replication in neural tissues.

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