About h3d foundation
Leadership team/ board of directors

Kelly Chibale
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
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 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 honours, 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 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) and Honorary Doctorate of the Faculty of Science, University of Basel, Switzerland (2023).
He was also named one of Fortune magazine’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders (2018), 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 (CPT) Pharma (South Africa), member of the Global Health Strategic Advisory Board of 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 Panel for the Sir Howard Dalton Centre for Translational Mechanistic Enzymology (AMR discovery translation) at the University of Warwick (UK), and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (Germany).
Kelly also serves on editorial advisory boards of ACS Infectious Diseases, Accounts of Chemical Research, ACS Bio & Med Chem Au, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Cell, ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science and Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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.

Susan Winks
ChIEF Operations Officer
Dr Susan Winks is currently employed as the Head of Research Operations and Business Development at H3D and manages the team of professional staff that support the interdisciplinary drug discovery work at H3D. She has been operating in a project management and operations role for the past 10 years, setting up organisational systems and working to support the various projects across the centre. Prior to this, Dr Winks worked as a medicinal chemist focused on drug discovery for neglected diseases, first at iThemba Pharmaceuticals for 3,5 years and then at H3D for a year
The transition away from laboratory science was precipitated by the completion of her MBA in 2014 and an ever-increasing interest in optimizing the environment for scientific efforts to maximize the impact.
Ayesha banderker
ChIEF FINANCIAL Officer
Ayesha Banderker is currently employed at the H3D Drug Discovery and Development centre where she manages and enables the financial, systems, policy and administrative framework within which H3D is able to function optimally. The position provides appropriate financial management and support services to the Director and general staff within the Centre in accordance with University requirements, policy and procedures.
The position also ensures adherence to statutory requirements, assesses risk and strives for operational efficiencies across the entire unit. She has been operating in the finance position for 7 years, setting up organisational systems and working to support the Centre.

Kelly has received many notable awards and honours, 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 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) and Honorary Doctorate of the Faculty of Science, University of Basel, Switzerland (2023).
He was also named one of Fortune magazine’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders (2018), 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 (CPT) Pharma (South Africa), member of the Global Health Strategic Advisory Board of 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 Panel for the Sir Howard Dalton Centre for Translational Mechanistic Enzymology (AMR discovery translation) at the University of Warwick (UK), and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (Germany).
Kelly also serves on editorial advisory boards of ACS Infectious Diseases, Accounts of Chemical Research, ACS Bio & Med Chem Au, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Cell, ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science and Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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.