Kelly Chibale is a full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cape Town (UCT) where he holds the Neville Isdell Chair in African-centric Drug Discovery & Development. He is also a Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Senior Fellow, Full Member of the UCT Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine, founding Director of the South African Medical Research Council Drug Discovery & Development Research unit at UCT, Founder & Director of the UCT Holistic Drug Discovery and Development (H3D) Centre, and Founder & CEO of the H3D Foundation.
Kelly obtained his PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Cambridge (UK) with Stuart Warren. This was followed by postdoctoral stints at the University of Liverpool (UK) with Nick Greeves and at The Scripps Research Institute (USA) with K.C. Nicolaou. He was a Sandler Sabbatical Fellow at the University of California San Francisco (USA), a US Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (USA), and a Visiting Professor at Pfizer (UK).
Kelly has received many notable awards and honors, which include a 2010/11 National Science and Technology Forum-BHP Billiton Award in the category TW Kambule NRF Senior Black Researcher (2011), UCT Alan Pifer Research Award (2011), South African National Research Foundation (NRF) Special Recognition Award: Champion of Research Capacity Development at South African Higher Education Institutions (2012), South African Medical Research Council Silver Medal (2013); South African Medical Research Council Gold Medal (2016); Cheney Visiting Fellowship from the University of Leeds in the UK (2017-2018); South African Chemical Institute Gold Medal (2018), Royal Society (UK) Africa Prize (2023), Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Senior Fellowship (2023), Honorary Doctorate of the Faculty of Science, University of Basel, Switzerland (2023), election as one of 10 International Members of the United States National Academy of Medicine (2024), election to an Honorary Fellowship of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge (2024), Honorary Doctorate of Leiden University, Netherlands (2025), election as one of 30 International Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences (2025), selection as an American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Distinguished International Fellow (2025) and invitation to be admitted as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) in recognition of profound leadership and influence on chemical science and society (2025). Kelly was also named one of Fortune magazine’s World's 50 Greatest Leaders (2018), one of the 100 Most Influential Africans by New African magazine (2019), one of 22 black biotech leaders in honour of Juneteenth in the USA on a list published by the Timmerman Report, which celebrates innovative black leaders who are change-makers in their respective fields (2021), and one of the 25 standout voices in African public health by Harvard University’s Public Health magazine (2022). After serving as an Associate Editor for the American Chemical Society (ACS)’s Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, in 2023 Kelly became the first Editor-In-Chief (EIC) from Africa of an ACS publication when he was appointed EIC of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters. Kelly’s other roles include being member of the board of Chemical Process Technologies Pharma (South Africa); Chair of Global Health at LifeArc (UK); member of the International Human Frontier Science Program Organization Council of Scientists representing South Africa; Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of INTREPID Alliance -a non-profit consortium of innovative biopharmaceutical companies dedicated to accelerating the pipeline of antiviral treatments to help protect the world ahead of future pandemics; Member of the 100 Days Mission Science and Technology Expert Group created to support the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat; member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (Beijing, China) and member of the Board of Directors of the Global Health Innovation Institute (Shanghai, China).
Kelly’s research interests are in drug discovery and the development of tools and models to contribute to improving treatment outcomes in people of African descent.