Tetrahedron Symposium Speaker Biography

Professor Kevan Shokat

Professor Shokat is currently Co-Chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  He is also a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. After receiving his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at UC Berkeley with Professor Peter Schultz, and post-doctoral work in immunology at Stanford University with Professor Chris Goodnow, Kevan started his independent career in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University as an Assistant and then Associate Professor before moving to UCSF. He has received numerous awards including being named a Fellow of several research foundations including the Pew Foundation, Searle Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Glaxo-Wellcome Foundation, and the Cotrell Foundation. He has also received the Eli Lilly Award from the American Chemical Society.

Professor Shokat is a pioneer in the development of chemical methods for investigating cellular signal transduction pathways, with a particular focus on protein kinases and lipid kinases. Dr. Shokat uses a combination of chemical synthesis and protein engineering to create uniquely traceable and regulatable kinases, allowing the function of over 100 different kinases to be uncovered across all disease areas including oncology, metabolism, and infectious disease.