Professor Ian Gilbert is a medicinal chemist with an interest in designing and synthesizing novel therapeutic compounds. After obtaining a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry, Prof. Gilbert spent a brief time working for Parke-Davis Neuroscience Centre in Cambridge. He then spent a year as a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Zambia in Lusaka. On returning to the UK, he undertook postdoctoral work in the area of chemical biology, before setting up his own medicinal chemistry research group at Cardiff University, where he focused on infectious diseases. In 2005, he moved to the University of Dundee to help set up the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU), where he became head of chemistry. In 2022 he was appointed head of the DDU.