Prof Anwar-ul-Hassan Gilani (S.I.; H.I.; PoP)
Distinguished National Professor (Emeritus)
Prof. Anwar Gilani's career is that of a distinguished Pharmacologist, combining novel discoveries and distinctive mentorship roles, who occupied multiple leadership positions with meaningful impact. After he obtained his PhD from the University of Sydney, Dr. Gilani joined the Aga Khan University in 1986 as Senior Instructor and rose to full Professor in 1997, through accelerated promotions, where he also occupied positions of Vice Chair, Research & Graduate Studies, Director, PhD Program and Chair, Board of Graduate Studies. While his lab at AKU remained fully functional, Prof. Gilani occupied external positions of Tandem Dean, College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, Ethiopia (2 years World Bank Project), and then Chairman, Pakistan Council for Science and Technology (2015-18). Having served as the Vice Chancellor, University of Haripur (2019-22), and Consultant at the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (2023-26), Prof. Gilani was conferred the Professor Emeritus at the Aga Khan University in Jan 2026 and he also holds the life-long titles of Distinguished National Professor by HEC, Fellow, Pakistan Academy of Sciences and Fellow-TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences).
Prof. Gilani has made break through discoveries in natural products research and was conferred the Boehringer International Research Award (Germany) in 1988 for his pioneer work on muscarinic receptor subtypes during his early career. He established very productive research group in the area of Ethnopharmacology and his research highlighted medicinal value of edible herbs/Functional Food. He is a co-editor of two WHO Books on Essential Medicine and published around 500 articles, attracting distinctly high citations (~ 35,000) with an h-index of 97 (Google scholar). Prof. Gilani occupied and maintained 1st National ranking in Pharmaceutical Sciences since last two decades (PCST data).
Prof. Gilani is recipient of several research awards including three civil awards (Pride of Performance, Sitar-i-Imtiaz, and Hilal-i-Imtiaz) and Life-Time Academic Achievements Award by the Govt of Pakistan, in addition to Salam Prize in Biology by TWAS, Italy, Ibn-Al-Haytham Prize in Science and Aga Hassan Abdi Gold Medals by Pakistan Academy of Science, Dr. ZA Hashmi Gold Medal by Pakistan Science Foundation and Outstanding Teacher Award by the Aga Khan University.
Prof. Gilani distinguished himself as a mentor and supervised research of 20 PhDs, mostly playing leadership role (Head/Director/Dean). Prof. Gilani has been invited speaker at around 50 international conferences including World Congress of Pharmacology and had the opportunity to represent Pakistan at 04 United Nations Meetings on Science, Technology and Innovations. He has served as advisor to WHO on Essential Medicine and Scientific Advisor to International Foundation for Science.
