Prof. Haynes obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Western Australia, then conducted postdoctoral work at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany as Gillette International Fellow, and then at Imperial College, London. Previous academic appointments were at Monash University, University of Sydney, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and North-West University, South Africa. He participated in the Australian Academy of Science-Chinese Academy of Science Exchange Programmes, was an external member of each of the CHEMAL and the Drug Discovery Research Committees of Tropical Diseases Research (TDR) of the World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, and collabor­ated on the TDR/WHO artesunate antimalarial drug development project. He has consulted with govern­ment agencies and pharmaceutical companies. He has 217 publications in the primary scientific literature; other outputs include patents, book chapters, and consulting reports for TDR/WHO, government agencies and industry. He was an A-rated researcher with the South African National Research Foundation (2014-2020), is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society.

Research activities involve drug development as directed from an organic chemistry/medicinal chemistry aspect. The first area focuses on new derivatives of the Chinese peroxidic antimalarial drug artemisinin, the active principle of the traditional Chinese herb qīng hāo 青篙 (Artemisia annua). One of the new derivatives was the 10-amino-artemisinin named artemisone, that was developed under a research and development contract between HKUST and Bayer AG, Germany. In contrast to the current clinically-used artemisinin derivatives, artemisone is notably non-neurotoxic, which will allow for usage against diseases where protracted treatment regimens may be required. Artemisone successfully completed a clinical Phase IIa trial in non-severe malaria patients, wherein based on the dosage regimen used, was some threefold superior to artesunate.  Artemi­sone and related compounds are highly active against other apicomplexan parasites including important veterinary parasites that cause babesiosis, neosporosis and toxo­plasmosis, against the non-apicomplexan parasites that cause schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis, and against the ulcerogenic bacterium Helicobacter pylori. It is also potently active against cytomegalovirus, an important infection in immunocompromised individuals, a usage for which artemisone was patented. Artemisone and newer amino-artemisinins elicit activity against tumour cell lines, and against cancer stem cells. In July 2017, artemisone was listed by the FDA as an orphan drug for treatment of malaria. Ongoing activities focus on mechanism of action of artemisinin, and development of rational combinations of new artemisinins with other structurally distinct drugs based on understanding of the mechanism of action of each of the drug components for treatment of malaria, other parasitic diseases including the diseases of veterinary importance listed above, cancer and bacterial diseases, including those caused by AMR resistant bacteria, and tuberculosis. For the last, emphasis is on developing drugs that maintain adequate sterilizing capacity within the diverse microenvironments inhabited by the causative pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis.