Research Summary
Our research is centered on the development of new synthetic methods and the utilization of synthetic chemistry for the study of important biological and medical problems. The projects in our laboratory range from the development of new methods in organic synthesis and the total synthesis of biologically important natural products to medicinal chemistry around leads compounds.
Biography
Dr. Gilbertson was born and grew up in west central Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse in 1979 with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry. In 1982 he received a M.S. Degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1988 while working with William D. Wulff on the development of Fischer carbene complexes for use in organic synthesis. From 1988 to 1990 he was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of David G. Lynn at the University of Chicago. Dr. Gilbertson started his independent career in 1990 in the Chemistry Department at Washington University where he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 1997 and Professor in 2000. In addition to serving as a faculty member, Dr. Gilbertson served as a Residential College Faculty Fellow at Washington University from 2000-2003. The summer of 2003, Dr. Gilbertson, relocated to the University of Texas Medical Branch, to become the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry and the Director of the Program in Chemical Biology. Then in 2009 he moved to the University of Houston where he is currently the M. D. Anderson Professor of Chemistry. While at Washington University, he received the 2002 Saint Louis Award from the St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society. He has served as a member of the NIH Bio-Organic and Natural Products Chemistry Study Section and as ad hoc member on numerous other NIH panels. He is also an Invited Expert Analyst for CHEMTRACTS and a past member of Executive Counsel of the Division of Organic Chemistry of the America Chemical Society. In 2017 Professor Gilbertson was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society.