Malaria is a major problem for children in Africa. Over the last 10 years there has been a massive international investment for malaria control. This has driven major changes in the delivery of new drugs, ways of preventing malaria and also the basic research that aims to develop vaccines.

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Kevin Marsh is a Professor of Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford and senior advisor at the African Academy of Sciences. He qualified in medicine at the University of Liverpool in 1978 and began his research career at the MRC Unit in the Gambia working on the immunology of malaria. In 1989 he established with colleagues a series of research projects on malaria in Kilifi on the Kenyan coast. These have subsequently developed into an international programme working on all aspects of health in east Africa (the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme) involving around 800 staff working across a number of countries in east Africa of which he was director until August 2014.

Kevin Marsh has a particular interest in developing and strengthening research capacity and scientific leadership in Africa and has sponsored or supervised over 40 research fellows and doctoral students which have included four winners of the Royal Society Pfizer prize for research in Africa. He is currently supporting the development of a new platform for the acceleration of science in Africa through the African Academy of Sciences and  at Oxford University he is the Director of Africa Oxford Initiative. He is fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the African Academy of Sciences and the World Academy of Sciences and was awarded the Prince Mahidol prize for medicine in 2010 and the Al Sumait prize for development in Africa in 2016.