"In this book, [the author] aims to combine his lifetime's experience in both academic and industrial spheres, his passionate interest in the history of immunology and vaccination, and his proven ability to explain the underlying science to uninitiated readers. This is a short book that takes a long view. The principles of vaccination have remained the same from the start of the vaccine story, and some strong contenders in today's race for a COVID-19 vaccine have stepped straight out of history in a re-invented form, and are just as likely to succeed as the latest gene-based candidates (the subject of Rhodes's own work on vaccines). While providing this historical backdrop, Rhodes explains the fundamentals of the science, revealing the unifying principles shaping the race and the intriguing details of vaccine discovery--an area beyond the reach of magazine and newspaper articles. This is, Rhodes says, what drives and motivates all vaccine researchers, and it is this intellectual excitement that he wants now to share with general readers"--

John Rhodes is a UK-based international expert in immunology and vaccine discovery. He has held research fellowships at the US National Institutes of Health and the University of Cambridge, and from 2001 to 2007 he was director of strategy in immunology at GlaxoSmithKline. He is the author of The End of Plagues: The Global Battle Against Infectious Disease.