Often mathematical, and occasionally artistic, my ideas have explored, among other things, how the air we breathe can deliver insulin into our bodies to treat diabetes, or spread infection in a pandemic, and how it can change what we eat, and why. Today, my ideas focus on the desiccation of the air we breathe by atmospheric climate change, and how the breathing aerosols of ions endogenous to the airways can help maintain human health.

David A. Edwards is a biophysicist, founder, and CEO of SC Therapeutics, a Harvard spinout company aimed at deactivation of mechano-sensitive channels for the treatment of respiratory and cardiovascular disease. Prior to joining the company, David was on the faculty of Engineering & Applied Sciences at Harvard University (2002-2019), after having co-founded and sold his first startup company, Advanced Inhalation Research (AIR) to Alkermes. The AIR technology, based on David’s 1997 Science publication describing the design of large porous particles for the non-invasive delivery of injectable drugs, led to the FDA approved Inbrija, inhaled L-Dopa for the treatment of Parkinson’s. While at Harvard, David pioneered the first inhaled dry powder BCG for mucosal vaccination against tuberculosis (PNAS 2007, 2008), and the attenuation of respiratory droplet generation in human lungs by the inhalation of salts (PNAS 2004).  In recent years, with a series of publications (PNAS 2021, Nature SciReports 2022, Quarterly Reviews Biophysics Discovery 2023, JAMP 2023, LUNG 2024, ERJOR 2024, Nature Communications Earth & Environment 2025, Nature SciReports 2026), David’s research has led to the discovery that, with other planetary ecosystems, human airways are dehydrating with global warming, increasing risks of respiratory illnesses such as cough, and systemic conditions such as hypertension, which can be treated with non-pharmacological aerosols of hypertonic divalent salts.  David has founded other technology companies, including Foodberry, pioneering new food forms based on the natural model of the grape. David is currently Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and Honorary Research Scientist in the School of Medicine at Imperial College London. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the French National Academy of Engineering (Académie des technologies), and the US National Academy of Inventors. For his work in the creative arts, fiction and nonfiction writing in French & English, David was made a Chevalier of arts and letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 2008.