Professor Adrian Hill selected as a finalist for the European Inventor Award 2026
The European Patent Office has announced that Professor Adrian Hill, Lakshmi Mittal Professor of Vaccinology and Director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, is one of three finalists in the ‘Research’ category of the European Inventor Award for his development of a vaccine against Malaria.
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Image credit: Getty Images (Manjurul)
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.
‘When I was working in The Gambia in the late 1980s, I saw children dying from malaria right in front of me. That experience stayed with me and convinced me that we needed something better than what was available.For most of the last two decades, half a million children were dying every year from malaria, almost all in Africa. Once you’ve seen that happen, it’s impossible not to want to do something about it,’ said Professor Hill.
From long-term research to real-world deployment
The R21 vaccine is the result of more than thirty years of sustained research at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford. Professor Hill’s work was shaped early on by clinical experience in malaria-endemic regions and supported by long-term public and charitable funding, allowing repeated iteration in an academic setting before large-scale manufacturing partnerships were established.
A decisive breakthrough came when Phase 2b trials reported up to 77% efficacy in 2021, exceeding the WHO’s target for malaria vaccines. The vaccine was subsequently co-developed with the Serum Institute of India to enable production at scale and at low cost, making it suitable for routine immunisation programmes in low-income settings.
‘I realised the world didn’t need more descriptions of how complicated the malaria parasite is and how cleverly it has evaded our immune system for millions of years. What we really needed was a way to prevent it, and a vaccine seemed the obvious route. That’s what pushed me toward research. The opportunity to create something that could have a real impact on huge numbers of people has always driven me,’ Professor Hill added.
Following regulatory approvals in African countries, the WHO formally recommended R21/Matrix-M for widespread use in October 2023. The vaccine is designed to remain stable under real-world conditions and is priced at under €3 per dose, supporting broad access in high-burden regions.
Professor Hill is one of three finalists in the ‘Research’ category of the European Inventor Award 2026. The other ‘Research’ finalists are Portuguese researcher Paula Videira and team for an antibody that distinguishes cancer cells from healthy tissue and Finnish physicist Mikko Möttönen for an ultrasensitive cryogenic microwave sensor to improve quantum computing hardware. The European Patent Office will announce the winners during a livestreamed ceremony from Berlin on 2 July 2026. In addition to the four award categories, the Popular Prize will be decided through a combined vote by the public and the independent jury.
The winners will be announced during the Award ceremony on 2 July 2026 in Berlin.
