Adrian Hill is a clinical scientist and a leader in the design and development of new vaccines for globally important infectious diseases. After training in medicine and human genetics he identified immunogenetic factors impacting susceptibility to several infectious diseases including malaria. For 25 years he has assessed pre-clinically and clinically a range of novel vaccination strategies.

He founded and directs the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, one of the leading academic vaccine institutes globally, with a major focus on vaccine design and development for diseases of the developing world. He has shown that non-replicating vectored vaccines, particularly simian adenoviruses used in heterologous prime-boost immunisation regimes, can protect safely through cellular as well as humoral immunity supporting new vaccination approaches for malaria and Ebola. Recent application of this technology to COVID-19 has led to widespread vaccine licensure and deployment.

For malaria he has designed and developed a virus-like particle in saponin adjuvant vaccine, R21 in matrix M adjuvant, which recently showed high level protective efficacy in African children, the population most vulnerable to malaria morbidity and mortality.