Kevin Gardner is the founding director of the Advanced Science Research Center (CUNY ASRC) at The Graduate Center, CUNY’s Structural Biology Initiative and the Einstein Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The City University of New York and The Graduate Center, CUNY. Gardner’s team at the CUNY ASRC explores critical questions about the structures and functions of molecules within cells to better understand how cells work: how they respond to their surroundings, how they duplicate, and what determines the balance between health and disease. The answers they unearth become bedrocks for developing novel drugs and therapies. Gardner spoke with The Thought Project host Tanya Domi about the role of basic research in fueling scientific advances that change our lives and how the CUNY ASRC is contributing to this work as it celebrates its fifth anniversary.