Benjamin F. Cravatt has received the 2020 AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research.
Cravatt, professor at the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology and the Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology for the Department of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, is being recognized for major technical advances in activity-based protein profiling.
His methods exploit the power of chemistry to generate new tools and assays for the global analysis of protein activities. He has applied these tools to the identification of new targets and drug candidates for cancer treatment.
The AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research was established by the AACR and its Chemistry in Cancer Research Working Group in 2007, through the initial support of GlaxoSmithKline, to recognize the importance of chemistry to advancements in cancer research. The award is intended to recognize outstanding, novel, and significant chemistry research that has led to important contributions in basic cancer research, translational cancer research, cancer diagnosis, the prevention of cancer, or the treatment of patients with cancer.