One of the greatest challenges facing organic chemistry is the synthesis of function, and so a central theme in the Gilmour Laboratory is molecular design. The ability to construct predictably functional molecules, either for research in the life sciences or materials fields requires the conception of systems with defined properties. As such any process must logically commence with a process of molecular design. The research programme in our laboratory is broadly based on exploiting physical organic principles to design novel materials with predictable conformational behaviour and/or reactivities. Since the group was established in 2009, the unifying theme of our research has been the strategic utilisation of stereoelectronic and electrostatic effects to predictable control molecular topology. So far, leveraging this design approach has been validated in the fields of enantioselective organocatalysis, preparative glycochemistry and carbohydrate mimesis, physical organic chemistry, and chemical biology.