I, at first, thought I didn’t have a ritual, but then I remembered that I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark—it must be dark—and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come. And she said, “Well, that’s a ritual.” And I realized that for me this ritual comprises my preparation to enter a space that I can only call nonsecular … For me, light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense.

I call it “stolen time”—there’s nothing more valuable than stolen time. It happens to me sometimes when I’ve set up a meeting at my studio at a certain time and it gets cancelled on short notice. When it happens, I’m like a giddy child. I think, “Wow, I’ve stolen half an hour. It’s so exciting—I can do whatever I want!”

I would end every night reading these ten letters. It made the numbers and the policies very concrete and very specific. And I was reminded that the choices we were making were affecting millions of people. I found that to be very useful.

I don’t lead by force, I lead by example. And if I can, set a good example. If I can set an example to my staff and my group, by being punctual, I come to work every morning, walk onto the hospital floor within two or three minutes of the same time every day, and they can depend upon it.

I was born in Osaka, Japan. It was 45 years ago. My father has a small factory in Osaka, and we lived next to his factory

Working at the hospital, I found that my surgical skills were not as good as I expected. One time it took me two hours to do a surgical operation which could have been completed in 30 minutes by other surgeons. My supervisors were very tough on new residents like me, and I lost confidence in my ability.

However, it was very natural that a failed surgeon with little experience in molecular biology had a hard time finding a position. A turning point came when I got a fax from Thomas Innerarity at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in San Francisco. After a short telephone conversation, Tom was brave enough to give me a postdoctoral position in his lab! Working at Gladstone was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

I strongly feel that this is, that I am able to receive this award because of John Gurdon and also many other researchers in the field. This field has a long history, starting with John Gurdon. So I feel very lucky. I may have played some important role in this long history, but it was not myself who initiated this field. So that’s my feeling right now.

A book also pushed me to become a medical doctor. I was deeply inspired by Torao Tokuda, a physician who founded a hospital group in the 1970s that tried to revolutionize the Japanese medical care system.

my second failure in my career. But that second failure got me interested in knockout mice, mouse technology. So I think failure is important in my career