The Search For Solutions

Edwards's work is like his conversations: precise and economical. It's also, well, kind of technical. Basically, what he's done is taken a process that didn't work for making vaccines, stripped it to its essence and thus made it feasible. The process, "spray-drying," is the same one used to make pasteurized milk. It's usually done with chemicals that protect what's being dried from excessive heat. But when applied to live bacteria, those chemicals aren't protective—they're lethal. This was Edwards's insight. He and his graduate student Yun-Ling Wong took out the chemicals and spray-dried bacteria in a simpler solution of mostly water. The result, published in February, was a powdered version of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It could replace the current TB vaccine. All a patient would have to do is breathe it in.

In theory, this could be huge. The spray-drying technology could make vaccines against any disease, not just TB. The powder is easy, fast and cheap to make, and it's stable at room temperature, unlike most traditional vaccines, which have to be kept cold—obviously a tricky task in the hot, shifting climates of tropical countries. It could also replace the unwieldy, if iconic, mechanism used to deliver most vaccines in the developing world today. "Getting rid of the needle would be great," says Edwards. "Getting a better vaccine would be even greater." He might get that, too. The powder contains 10 times as many live, replicating bacteria as the traditional vaccine. It's probably very potent.

That's the catch. Some people find the idea of voluntarily inhaling a giant cluster of TB germs a little discomfiting. The organisms in the powder are weakened, but they still might cause reactions in an organ as delicate as the lung, says Jerald Sadoff of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation. "There's a risk, and that risk has to be examined thoroughly," he says. So far, it's been examined only in guinea pigs. They did fine. But like Jenner, Edwards needs to test his idea on people.

That may happen soon. Last week, the Gates Foundation, which funds an enormous amount of vaccine research—it is impossible to write about the field without mentioning its name—expanded its reach even further. It announced a $200 million grant to Aeras for trials of six new TB vaccines, including the powder. Edwards also is moving ahead with plans to make the stuff on a large scale. Last year South African scientists visited his lab to learn how to build their own spray-drying facility. Someday, Edwards says, they could produce the world's annual supply of TB vaccine, an effort that would take about 50 days. Think he's just dreaming? Take a deep breath and think again.

Christopher Egerton-Warburton studied biochemistry at Oxford University. But he's not a scientist or a doctor or an engineer; academia is too precarious and ill-paid for him. He's a banker, and, at first glance, a pretty stereotypical one. Until recently, he worked in the London offices of Goldman Sachs, which he calls "the big bad bank." He goes by "Edge," wears cuff links with crests on them and is the picture of worldly success: there's a sharp-suited photo of him in the company's 2003 annual report. He knows you probably think Goldman Sachs types "eat babies for breakfast." It's unclear whether he cares. He's charming but ruthless; he says, for example, that doing charity work makes it "sometimes hard to meet your colleagues in the eye."

But Edge knows charity. When the British government needed advice on a decidedly unglamorous vaccine project, the task fell to him. His job was to transform the business of immunization into an investment opportunity glittery (and secure) enough to attract billions in risk-averse international capital. He did it, and how: among his investors were Bono, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the pope.