Malaria remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 282 million malaria cases and 610 000 deaths were recorded globally in 2024, with children under five accounting for around three-quarters of all deaths in the WHO Africa Region. After decades of limited progress in vaccine development, Professor Hill and his team developed a highly effective malaria vaccine that has now been recommended by the WHO for widespread use and is being deployed in many African countries. For this work, Hill has been selected as a finalist in the ‘Research’ category of the European Inventor Award 2026 by an independent jury.
Improving protection against a complex parasite
Developing a malaria vaccine has long been considered one of the toughest challenges in medicine. The malaria parasite is genetically complex and passes through multiple life-cycle stages in the human body, making it difficult for the immune system to recognise and block infection. Earlier vaccine candidates, including one previously licensed malaria vaccine, achieved only modest and short-lived protection, with limited supply capacity, in young children.
Professor Hill and his team addressed a key design limitation by increasing the amount and density of malaria-specific protein presented to the immune system, while removing components that could weaken the immune response. The resulting vaccine, known as R21/Matrix-M, forms tiny nanoparticles that closely resemble the size of common viruses, a scale to which the human immune system responds particularly strongly. When combined with the Matrix-M adjuvant, the vaccine generates substantially higher antibody levels than earlier approaches.