Benjamin F. Cravatt

Cravatt has made many contributions to the development and application of post-genomic methods for the functional characterization of proteins. He introduced and developed the powerful activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) technology, which utilizes active site-directed chemical probes to profile the functional state of proteins in native biological systems. He has used ABPP to characterize several important proteins in mammalian biology, including the endocannabinoid-metabolizing enzymes fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), which Cravatt discovered as a graduate student, and monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL). Cravatt has also used ABPP in combination with metabolomics to assign functions to enzymes in cancer and human neurological disease.