Establishing RTS,S/AS01 as a benchmark for comparison to next-generation malaria vaccines in a mouse model.

"Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Vaccine Immunology Statistical Center scientists were supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-027499) as part of the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory (GHDC). The Zavala laboratory was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-001763). PATH was supported by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Innovations in Malaria Vaccine Development Contract Number 7200AA20C00017 and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-007217). Under the grant conditions of the Gates Foundation, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License has already been assigned to the Author Accepted Manuscript version that might arise from this submission. The authors acknowledge many contributions on experimental planning, design, and interpretation by Ashley Birkett (PATH), Lorraine Soisson (USAID), and Holger Kanzler (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). The authors also thank the Insectary and Parasitology Core Facilities of Johns Hopkins Malaria Research institute. FZ, YFG, SMT, and BSJ thank the Bloomberg Philanthropies for continued support. The authors thank Yannick Vanloubbeeck at GSK for permission to use Mosquirix™ and for helpful comments on the manuscript. The authors thank Erik Jongert and Catherine Gerard at GSK for permission to use plasma from the MAL092 CHMI study."