Ian Gibbons (March 6, 1946 – May 23, 2013) was a British biochemist and molecular biology researcher who served as the chief scientist of the American company Theranos, which was founded by Elizabeth Holmes.

Gibbons had attempted to inform his superiors at Theranos, including Holmes, of the failure of their technology but the company's executives repeatedly ignored his objections.

Gibbons' career at Theranos is documented in Carreyrou's book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, and in the second episode of the ABC News podcast The Dropout.

[1][2] After obtaining his Ph.D., he moved to the United States and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the department of molecular biology of the University of California, Berkeley.

[11] While working at Biotrack Laboratories, he developed blood assay technologies and held 19 patents for the scientific techniques he created.

[13][11][17] At Biotrack, Gibbons, Robertson, and others invented and patented a mechanism to dilute and mix liquid samples, abilities that would become key in Theranos' processes.

[15] Gibbons attempted to fix the technology to match the grandiose claims made by Holmes and Theranos staff but his efforts were unsuccessful.

[42] In 2006, Gibbons told Holmes the blood testing Theranos had developed was not yet fit for use by members of the public, and that their proprietary technology was not accurate.

[43][44] In late 2010, Gibbons told his friend and trusted colleague Channing Robertson about his concerns about misrepresentations made by Theranos about the effectiveness of its technology.

[5][47] Several of Gibbons' colleagues lobbied on his behalf, and he was quickly rehired with reduced responsibilities as a technical consultant to the chemistry group he had formerly headed.

In response, Fuisz added Gibbons' name to his list of witnesses to be deposed to answer questions about improper reuse of past work and the identification of Holmes as a co-inventor.

[63][64][65] After she spoke with a journalist, she received a letter from the law firm representing Theranos, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, signed by attorney Mike Brille.

"[13] In 2015, The Wall Street Journal published a Theranos exposé by John Carreyrou, after which, Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Sunny Balwani sent text messages to each other about filing a lawsuit against Rochelle Gibbons.

[62] Rochelle Gibbons said of these legal threats from Holmes' attorney David Boies and his law firm: "[It] was absurd that is that they could think that they could sue me for talking about Ian.

[5][67] Beginning in 2015, The Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou exposed the practices of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes in a series of articles; this was followed by US federal government investigations that led to the company's collapse in 2018.

[4][68][69] Carreyrou devoted chapter 12 of his book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup to Ian Gibbons.

[71] Ian Gibbons's career, his time at Theranos, and his death were featured in the second episode of the ABC News podcast The Dropout, which was hosted by Rebecca Jarvis.

[72][73] In the 2019 podcast episode titled "The Enforcer", Jarvis interviews Rochelle Gibbons, who had also talked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for United States v. Elizabeth A. Holmes, et al.[72][73] In the American biographical television drama miniseries created by The Dropout, based on the podcast, Gibbons was portrayed by actor Stephen Fry.

[30] In a 2022 article for the journal Frontiers in Sociology, University of South Florida professors Lily M. Abadal and Garrett W. Potts[31] called the management culture at Theranos a form of "chronic moral injury" (CH-MI).

[31] The professors concluded; "the recent management scandal at Theranos ... perpetuated CH-MI, ultimately leading to Gibbons's untimely death".