Dr Sleebs is a medicinal chemist with extensive experience in early-stage Drug Discovery. Dr Sleebs received his PhD from La Trobe University and joined The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in 2005. In 2018 he was appointed a Laboratory Head at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Dr Sleebs past research includes collaborations with Bionomics Ltd that resulted in a Phase II clinical candidate for treatment of anxiety and with Genentech and AbbVie developing a pre-clinical candidate that target the BH3 family of proteins for treating blood cancers. His current research focuses on developing small molecule probes to better understand biological processes that are essential to the survival of the malaria parasite and the progression of cancer malignancies. As part of his current research focus, Dr Sleebs is collaborating independently with the pharmaceutical companies, Merck, Janssen and Servier, and Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop novel antimalarial and oncology agents.