Kevan Shokat

Kevan is professor and chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, and professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

Kevan 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. His laboratory uses a combination of chemical synthesis and protein engineering to create uniquely traceable and regulatable kinases, allowing the function of more than 100 different kinases to be uncovered across all disease areas including oncology, metabolism, and infectious disease.

Kevan has received numerous awards for his work, including being named a Fellow of the Pew Foundation, Searle Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Glaxo-Wellcome Foundation, and the Cotrell Foundation. He has also received the Eli Lilly Award, given to the most promising biological chemist in the country under the age of 37.

Kevan received his B.S. in chemistry from Reed College and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.