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Dr. Laurie Glimcher learned early on from her father, a prominent physician-researcher, that success in science was built on a basic principle: Big discoveries require big risks.

The younger Glimcher took that advice to heart. In the late 1990s at her Harvard immunology lab, Glimcher and her postdoctoral student began a series of experiments that colleagues deemed “crazy.” But after a year of trial and error, the lab had a eureka moment when it found that white blood cells could be reprogrammed, a seminal discovery that led to new ways to treat cancer.

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“Most scientists do good work, but they don’t transform a scientific question,” said Glimcher. “I always felt the only way to do that is to think big and go after something that’s going to be really important.”

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