"Prospects for new tools to control malaria" with Prof Kevin Marsh

Past Event

Date
08 February 2018, 6:00pm - 7:00pm

Location
Lecture Theatre, Oxford Martin School
34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD

Artboard 93 100
© Adobestock/layritten

Malaria remains a global health threat. Over the last 15 years there has been major international investment for malaria control and there have been substantial gains in reducing malaria in many countries, but now there is evidence that these trends are slowing. New approaches are needed to achieve the global goals of malaria control and elimination.

Professor Kevin Marsh, Professor of Tropical Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Medicine in the University of Oxford, will talk about the current exciting areas in malaria research including vaccines, long acting drugs and genetic modification of the mosquito vectors.

Join in on Twitter with #oxmartintalks


About the speaker

Professor Kevin Marsh is the Professor of Tropical Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford and Principal Investigator at the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme on immunity to malaria, where he was Director from its inception until August 2014.

He qualified in medicine at the University of Liverpool and, after undertaking specialist training as a physician, began his research career at the Medical Research Council Unit in the Gambia working on the immunology of malaria. From 1985-89 he was at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford and in 1989 established with colleagues a series of research projects on the clinical epidemiology and immunology of malaria at Kilifi on the Kenyan coast. These have subsequently developed into the current programme at KEMRI. The programme's research is multidisciplinary and ranges from community based epidemiology, through bedside clinical research and basic sciences to social science, health systems and policy research applied to all major causes of morbidity in east Africa.

He is chair of the WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Committee recently established to advise the Director General of the WHO on malaria. Professor Marsh has a particular interest in developing and strengthening research capacity and scientific leadership in Africa. He is a member of a number of international advisory committees relating to malaria and to global health research. Kevin Marsh has a broad interest in clinical, epidemiological and immunological aspects of malaria. His specialist interest is in how people acquire immunity to malaria and the team he established in Kilifi have made major contributions to this field. He is currently leading the development of a programme of experimental malaria challenge to support vaccine development and testing in Nairobi.