Kevin Marsh Wins 2017 Drexel Prize in Infectious Disease

Kevin Marsh, Director of the Africa Oxford Initiative, Professor of Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford, and Senior Advisor at the African Academy of Sciences has been selected to receive a Drexel Prize for scientific excellence.

Prof Marsh, together with 6 other prize winners will receive their awards and give talks during the 2017 International Symposium on Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease in Philadelphia, USA.

His major research interests have been in the acquisition of human immunity to malaria and its interplay in determining the clinical and epidemiological picture of the disease. In 1989, he established a series of research projects on Malaria in Kilifi, Kenya with his colleagues which subsequently developed into the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme – an international interdisciplinary program addressing many aspects of public health with more than 800 staff working across East Africa.

Prof Marsh was director of the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme until August 2014, when he turned his expertise towards working towards the development of scientific leadership in Africa. He established the Africa Oxford Initiative – a cross-university platform for facilitating the development of sustainable and mutually-beneficial research collaborations with African institutions.

He is also currently supporting the development of a new platform for the acceleration of science in Africa through the African Academy of Sciences. He is chair of the WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Committee and is a member of a number of international advisory committees relating to malaria and to global health research. He is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the African Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Prince Mahidol Prize for Medicine in 2010, the Al Sumait Prize for Development in Africa in 2016 and the European Molecular Biology Laboratories (EMBL) Award for lifetime achievement in malaria research in 2017.