He has worked for over 25 years on tropical medicine, HIV and health systems strengthening, as a clinical researcher, providing technical assistance and in planning and policy development. He has considerable senior management experience: in UNAIDS, running its largest country office; in WHO, leading HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment policy and driving the target-based “three by five” roll-out; and in UK Universities, leading an Academic Department and establishing a vibrant research team conducting formative multidisciplinary clinical and systems research and trials in Africa. He was the Principal Investigator on the DART trial, still to date the largest trial of ART in Africa and published in 2009 (Lancet runner-up Paper of the Year). He remains research-active, with over 200 peer-reviewed publications; his Google H-index is 56.
In the UK, Dr Gilks raised and managed grant research income in excess of 15 million, and supervised 9 MD/PhD students. In WHO, he raised over $250 million for HIV/AIDS work, pioneered the Public Health approach to HIV, and edited up to 2009 all the Prevention and Treatment guidelines which set the global norms and standards for HIV programming.