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Sandbox Enthusiasm

Jim DeSena, CSP

Key Ideas:

1. Creativity often comes when we aren't seeking it.
2. Challenge accepted wisdom. The status quo is a habit.
3. Science is art. Curiosity is the fuel for invention.

"Leadership is the brushstroke of inspiration." Jim DeSena

The following information is based on a New York Times article dated June 16, 1998

Dr. Polly Matzinger changed the way the people think about the immune system.

Prior to becoming a scientist, Dr. Matzinger tried many jobs, including dog trainer, jazz musician and Playboy bunny. They all seemed to get boring. She settled on being a waitress at night, which allowed her to spend her days reading, composing and working with animals. Then serendipity struck. Two professors, who often came in to where she worked as a waitress, were talking about how animals mimic each other. She asked why no animals every mimic a skunk. It was an obvious question they had never considered. One professor decided Polly Matzinger had the capability of becoming a scientist. During the next nine months, he gave her scientific articles that showed that science is never boring. With his urging, she applied to graduate school and ultimately got her Ph.D. degree. She works now as a tenured medical researcher at the National Institutes of Health.

She developed what she calls the Danger Model of the immune system. The generally accepted theory of the immune system had been that the body rejects anything foreign. In graduate school, Dr. Matzinger kept asking why didn't we reject the food we eat, the particles in the air or everything else that was foreign. She was told to stop worrying about it, so she did, until she came to the NIH. After thinking about the problem for a year with a colleague, while sitting in her bath, the answer came to her. "Things that are dangerous do damage. No damage, no danger."

Next, she had to figure out how the white blood cells recognize the damage. Her answer to that question arrived unexpectedly. While she and her dog were watching sheep grazing in a field, something moved in the field and it startled the sheep. The dog jumped up to protect them. Her dog had sensed danger. She realized that every organ of the body has cells that are like sheep dogs. Alarm signals from injured cells could alert them to danger to the immune system. This became the "Danger Model."

Unfortunately, just as with any change, others were not so easily convinced. (Sort of like when the world went from being flat to round.)

Working at the rational level to solve problems gives rational solutions. Breakthrough ideas come from the creative inspiration.

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