Ishtiaq obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2007 from the University of Paderborn, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Karsten Krohn with a thesis on the study of enantioselective epoxidation, asymmetric reduction, and synthesis of bioactive oligomeric flavonoids. He carried out his postdoctoral research in the same group working on synthesis of chiral macrolide building blocks from sugar, synthesis of anthrapyran antibiotics. In 2010 he moved to Fruk group at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and worked on design of photoswitchable, multifunctional linkers for nanoparticle, DNA, and protein modification. In 2014, Ishtiaq joined the group of Prof. Niemeyer at the Institute of Biological Interfaces (IBG-1) in KIT where he was involved in different projects including the synthesis of different fluorescein, biotinylated substrates, acridine-based DNA-intercalators and the synthesis of organic molecules used for the modification of silica nanoparticles, proteins and DNA-origami. In 2020 he joined again Fruk group to work on the development of membrane adherent, light-sensitive nanodevices capable of neuronal activation and use of surface-immobilized antibodies to target specific cell-phenotype. His research interests focus on the development of new synthetic methods and synthesis of the multifunctional organic compounds used for different biological applications.