Whilst at the University of Sheffield Gibson met Audrey Jane Pinsent in 1951.

[6] Gibson started his career with studies of hemoglobin,[7] [8] and continued with much other work on heme proteins.

[11] During the period when protein and enzyme cooperativity was at the center of biochemical interest Gibson studied it in the context of abnormal hemoglobins.

[12] [13] Gibson made major contributions to the development of methods for studying rapid reactions,[14] and their application to hemoglobin.

[2] He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and an associate editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry from 1975 to 1994.