Kevan Shokat

Kevan’s laboratory is focused on the discovery of new small molecule tools and drug candidates targeting protein/lipid kinases, GTPases, and RNA helicases. His lab utilizes the tools of synthetic organic chemistry, protein engineering, structural biology, biochemistry and cell biology. In oncology and neurodegenerative diseases he focuses primarily on targets in pathways which have been validated by human genetics such as the lipid kinase PIK3CA mutants (20% of human tumors), the most frequently mutated human oncogene—the GTPase–KRAS, the metabolic and growth factor sensitive kinase mTOR, the mitochondrial kinase, PINK1 (Parkinson’s Disease), the kinase Lrrk2 (Parkinson’s Disease). Kevan is currently an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, vice-chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco, and Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his B.A. in Chemistry from Reed College in 1986. After receiving his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at UC Berkeley with Professor Peter Schultz, and post-doctoral work in cellular immunology at Stanford University with Professor Chris Goodnow, he began his independent research career at Princeton University before moving to UCSF in 1999. He was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences (2010), the Institute of Medicine (2011), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011). He has commercialized discoveries from his laboratory through co-founding several biotechnology companies including, Cellular Genomics, Intellikine, Araxes, Kura, eFFECTOR, Revolution Medicines and Mitokinin.