Benjamin Franklin Cravatt III is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at
The Scripps Research Institute in
La Jolla, California
La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature o ...
.
Considered a co-inventor of
activity-based proteomics and a substantial contributor to research on the
endocannabinoid system
The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is a biological system composed of endocannabinoids, which are neurotransmitters that bind to cannabinoid receptors, and cannabinoid receptor proteins that are expressed throughout the central nervous system ( ...
, he is a prominent figure in the field of
chemical biology
Chemical biology is a scientific discipline between the fields of chemistry and biology. The discipline involves the application of chemical techniques, analysis, and often small molecules produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and m ...
. Cravatt was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
in 2014,
and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
in 2016. He is Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology, a Cope Scholar, and a
Searle Scholar.
Early life and education
His father was a
dentist
A dentist, also known as a dental doctor, dental physician, dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry, the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. The dentist's supporting team aids in provi ...
and his mother a
dental hygienist, both of whom instilled in Cravatt an interest in biology as a child.
Ben Cravatt is left handed.
Cravatt entered
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
in 1988, graduating in 1992 with a
BS in the Biological Sciences and a
BA in History.
He then received a
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in Macromolecular and Cellular Structure and Chemistry from
The Scripps Research Institute in 1996,
where he worked under the joint supervision of
Dale L. Boger and
Richard Lerner.
Research
His early contributions to the
cannabinoid
Cannabinoids () are several structural classes of compounds found primarily in the ''Cannabis'' plant or as synthetic compounds. The most notable cannabinoid is the phytocannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) (delta-9-THC), the primary psychoact ...
field include identification and characterization of the endocannabinoid-terminating enzyme
fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH),
as well as the isolation of the novel soporific compound
oleamide from
cerebrospinal fluid
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is a clear, colorless Extracellular fluid#Transcellular fluid, transcellular body fluid found within the meninges, meningeal tissue that surrounds the vertebrate brain and spinal cord, and in the ventricular system, ven ...
.
Cravatt and colleagues pioneered the
activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) chemical proteomic technology, which they used in 2010 to elucidate certain global proteomic features of cysteine proteases.
Cravatt's lab has since combined the ABPP technology with
metabolomics
Metabolomics is the scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites, the small molecule substrates, intermediates, and products of cell metabolism. Specifically, metabolomics is the "systematic study of the unique chemical fingerpri ...
.
Awards and professional service
Among the awards that Cravatt has received are the
TR100 Award in 2002, the
Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry in 2004, the
ASBMB-Merck Award in 2014 and the
Sato Memorial Award in 2015.
Cravatt also received an
NCI MERIT grant in 2009.
In 2022 he was awarded the
Wolf Prize in Chemistry.
Wolf Prize in Chemistry 2022
/ref>
Cravatt is a co-founder of Vividion Therapeutics, Abide Therapeutics and ActivX Biosciences. He formerly served as an Associate Editor for the ''Journal of the American Chemical Society
The ''Journal of the American Chemical Society'' (also known as JACS) is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the ...
'' and ''Chemical Science''.
See also
* Fatty acid amide hydrolase
* Activity-based protein profiling
* Chemoproteomics
References
External links
The Scripps Research Institute
The Cravatt Lab at TSRI
Vividion Therapeutics
Abide Therapeutics
ActivX Biosciences
TR35 Young Innovator 2002
Interview with Ben Cravatt
on the website of the Royal Society of Chemistry
The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cravatt 3rd, Benjamin
Scientists from San Diego
Scripps Research faculty
Living people
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Members of the National Academy of Medicine
1970 births