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Prof. Kevin Marsh

Principal Investigator


Biography

Kevin Marsh was Director of the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme from its inception untill August 2014. He qualified in medicine at the University of Liverpool in 1978 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. The programme’s research is multidisciplinary and ranges from community based epidemiology, though bedside clinical research and basic sciences to social science and health systems and policy research applied to all major causes of morbidity in east Africa. Kevin is also professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford and chair of the Oxford Tropical Network. 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.