Benjamin Cravatt of Scripps Research honored with 2020 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research

LA JOLLA, CA — The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has recognized the pioneering work of chemical biologist Benjamin Cravatt, PhD, with its 2020 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research.

The award is intended to credit outstanding, novel, and significant chemistry research that has led to important contributions in basic and translational cancer research, as well as in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer.

“Ben is a remarkable scientist, whose discoveries in chemistry have been instrumental in identifying new therapeutic drugs for a variety of difficult-to-treat conditions,” says Jamie Williamson, PhD, executive vice president of Research and Academic Affairs at Scripps Research.

AACR recognized Cravatt for his development of activity-based protein profiling, a powerful chemical approach that has enabled the analysis of protein activities on an unprecedented scale. He has applied these creative techniques to characterize key signaling pathways in cancer, demonstrating their potential to serve as therapeutic targets. Subsequently, Cravatt has used cutting-edge profiling methods to develop selective drugs to validate these targets for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Throughout his career, Cravatt has made numerous important breakthroughs spanning the fields of chemical biology, biochemistry, cancer, and neuroscience. He is a professor at the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology and the Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology for the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research.