I, Dr. Basappa, born in 1976, completed my M.Sc. (Organic Chemistry, 1999) and Ph.D. (Chemistry, 2005) at the University of Mysore under Prof. KS Rangappa with the theme “Synthesis and characterization of some biologically active heterocyclic compounds”. I conducted postdoctoral research at Kobe Pharmaceutical University (2006), was a JSPS fellow at Hokkaido University (2007–2009; host: Prof. Kazuyuki Sugahara), Japan, and have also worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at SMART, Singapore (2009–2011, host: Prof. Ram Sasisekharan). I was an MIT Research Affiliate (2010), Pavate Fellow at the University of Cambridge (2013), and Research Fellow (2015) at Meijo University, Japan. I received the Sir CV Raman Young Scientist State Award from the government of Karnataka and the RC Shaw Memorial Lecture Award from the Indian Science Congress. My laboratory predominantly works in developing drug-like heterocycles that target cancer, infectious diseases, and diabetes-responsible biomolecules. For this purpose, we develop and apply chemical tools to manipulate drug targets in vitro and in in vivo. My lab has contributed to more than 100 publications of high scientific standing, which include PNAS, J. Biol. Chem., RSC Journals, PLOS One, Sci. Rep., Cancer Letters., Bioorganic and Med. Chem., and Glycobiology. I have earned around 2300 scientific citations with an h-index of 28 and an i10 index of 62 for my research contributions as of August 2020.