Gilles Gasser was born, raised and educated in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. After a PhD thesis in supramolecular chemistry with Prof. Helen Stoeckli-Evans (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Gilles undertook two post-docs, first with the late Prof. Leone Spiccia (Monash University, Australia) in bioinorganic chemisty and then as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow with Prof. Nils Metzler Nolte (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany) in bioorganometallic chemistry.

In 2010, Gilles started his independent scientific career at the University of Zurich as a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Ambizione Fellow before obtaining a SNSF Assistant Professorship in 2011.

In 2016, Gilles moved to Chimie ParisTech, PSL University (Paris, France) to take a PSL Chair of Excellence. Gilles is a RSC Fellow recipient and received several fellowships and awards including the Alfred Werner Award from the Swiss Chemical Society, an ERC Consolidator Grant and Proof of Concept, the Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, the Jucker Award for his contribution to cancer research, the European BioInorganic Chemistry (EuroBIC) medal and recently the Pierre Fabre Award for therapeutic innovation from the Société de Chimie Thérapeutique (SCT). He was an Overseas Fellow of the Churchill College, University of Cambridge in 2022. Gilles’ research interests lay in the use of metal complexes in different areas of medicinal and biological chemistry.