Profile: Manuel Elkin Patarroyo; December 1996; Scientific American Magazine; by Holloway; 2 Page(s)

The turn-of-the-century stone building is rotting inside, floorboards dusty and dilapidated, pigeons roosting in the eaves. There are no windows in the moldy sills, and weeds are thriving--even this structure in the middle of Bogot¿, Colombia, suggests the jungle is not so very far away. "This is how my buildings always come," says Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, proud of the efforts that have transformed other nearby structures into a charming enclave, complete with gardens, that recall the Pasteur Institute in Paris--a similarity that delights Patarroyo, because he says that it irritates his rivals there.

Once restored, this addition to the Institute of Immunology at the San Juan de Dios Hospital will permit Patarroyo to expand his research empire and to begin mass-producing the source of his fame and his controversy: the malaria vaccine Spf66. But the immunologist does not want to dally in the ruined building and talk about whether the world is going to want such vast quantities of the compound. The day is slipping away, it¿s already 10 o¿clock in the morning, and there are labs to dash through and years of work to review.