Scripps Research, La Jolla, USA

Research

Benjamin Cravatt receives the 2024 Heinrich Wieland Prize for his groundbreaking contributions to the development and application of methods for the functional annotation of enzymes. He devised activity-based protein profiling (ABPP), a chemical proteomic strategy, which uses small-molecule probes to measure the activity of many enzymes in parallel directly in native biological systems. ABPP is now widely applied in the discovery and characterization of enzymes and small-molecule enzyme inhibitors in vitro, in cells, and in vivo, across the entire proteome. With ABPP, Benjamin Cravatt discovered selective and efficacious inhibitors of enzymes that regulate endocannabinoid signalling in the brain. His research revealed central roles for endocannabinoid pathways in pain, inflammation, and neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. More recently, Benjamin Cravatt extended the ABPP technology to non-enzymatic proteins. With this, it is now possible to map interactions for any small-molecule directly and globally across the proteome and to discover chemical probes for historically undruggable proteins. Benjamin Cravatt’s transforming technologies have enabled the discovery of fundamental regulatory pathways in human physiology and disease and revolutionized how drug discovery is done today. The chemistry platforms and probes developed in Benjamin Cravatt’s laboratory have served as the foundation for several drug candidates currently investigated in clinical trials for the treatment of cancer and neurological disorders.

Academic Career

Benjamin F. Cravatt studied biology and history at Stanford University and earned his PhD in macromolecular and cellular structure and chemistry from Scripps Research in La Jolla, USA, in 1996. Scripps is a non-profit medical research institute. Immediately afterward, he became an Assistant Professor there and in 2002, the Director of the Helen L. Dorris Child and Adolescent Neuro-Psychiatric Disorder Institute. Since 2004, he has held the Norton B. Gilula Chair in Chemical Biology at Scripps and has been a Professor in the Department of Chemistry since 2018. He has received multiple awards, including the R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, the Jeremy Knowles Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry, the AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research, and the Wolf Prize in Chemistry. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.