On Bacteria and Brilliance

The composition of your body—and my body—is possibly different from what you thought. Did you know that there are roughly ten times as many bacterial cells in each of our bodies as there are human cells? The bacteria are small and mostly in our intestines, so it’s nothing to worry about. But we should always remember that, by numbers, we are mostly bacteria.

I’m telling you this because you know who else was mostly bacteria? Albert Einstein. And Thomas Edison, and Thomas Jefferson. And Mohandas Gandhi and Marie Curie. At the atomic level, or even at the cellular level, organ level, or microbiological level, there’s really very little difference between any of us and any of these people, our heroes. We are all in the extremely fortunate position of living at a time and in a place where we have tremendous opportunities to shape our lives. So if you want to be like these people, you’ve got the equipment. It’s only a matter of how you spend your time.

A friend of mine, a scientist, recently said, “If I knew what Nobel Prizes would be given during the next twenty years, I could probably do many of those experiments.” It’s true, and with a bit of training so could any of you. A few years ago the Nobel Prize in physics went to two guys who did an experiment with scotch tape and graphite.

I’m talking about science here, because that is what I know best. But of course the same applies equally to other realms of life: to art, medicine, business, and public policy. Every Harvard student has the capacity to write the words, paint the picture, start the business, or make the speech that will revolutionize any of these areas.

So how do you figure out how to do world-changing work? Of course I don’t know, because I haven’t done it. But I’ve looked around at other people, and here are some thoughts.

There are two things that I believe are important for making great advances in any field. The first is that you need technical skills. You have to know how to design a circuit, write a three-part harmony, motivate a group, or integrate by parts. Harvard will do an excellent job getting you started on learning these skills. But there are thousands, maybe millions, of people who will receive similar levels of training, and who will probably be equally technically competent.

The real challenge—and fun—lies in deciding how to apply your skills. This is where you get to imagine what might be, to conceive of something in your mind that has never existed in the 14 billion year history of the universe. And then you can work to make that thought into reality.

The joy of creating a new configuration of matter or thoughts is, I think, one of the greatest joys there is. And it’s remarkably easy. When you go to the dining hall tonight, look carefully at all the trays of food. It won’t be hard to combine the items into a dish that has never been eaten before in the history of humanity. Asparagus with peanut butter, ketchup, and Cheerios might not be super delicious, but it will be original. In fact, each of you could easily eat a dish never previously eaten in the history of humanity for every meal for the rest of your life.

But being indiscriminately wacky will not, by itself, bring about revolutions. It’s also a good idea to work on an important problem. Now, I want to be clear what I mean by an important problem. There are the classics: renewable energy, the environment, cancer, HIV, poverty, injustice. A lot of people are working on those—you can too, and they’re important. But there are tons of hugely important problems that receive very little attention. And it can be fun to be doing something different from everyone else.

A good friend of mine is a professor at MIT. And you know what she studies? Mucus! Yes, mucus. Now this is something we all have recreational experience with. In fact, each of us makes about a liter of it every day. But she thought to study it, to look into its mechanical and chemical properties: to study how microbes—bacteria and viruses—move in it. She’s discovering all sorts of fascinating things about this miracle material. And it’s important: Most infections people get start with a pathogen crossing a mucus membrane. Yet we know almost nothing about mucus. Often the most interesting problems are right under—or in—our noses.

So here is some free advice: get in the habit—if you’re not in it already—of thinking up unusual, wacky ideas. And write them down. An idea that seems crazy now might be quite practical in a few years. And keep your eyes open for interesting, important problems, and treasure them when you find them. So you’ll have this list of important problems and this continual stream of wacky ideas; and before too long one of those wacky ideas might be a solution to one of those important problems. In the meantime, stay open-minded, work hard, and good luck.

Adam E. Cohen ’01 is Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and of Physics at Harvard. He adapted this article from his commencement speech given to the 2011 graduating class at Hunter College High School.