Charles S. Craik, Ph.D.

Charles S. Craik, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). He is the founder and former director of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program and is a co-director of the Molecular Oncology Program in the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received his education and training in Chemistry at Allegheny College (B.S.), Columbia University (Ph.D.) and UCSF (Postdoctoral). He joined the UCSF faculty in 1985 where his research interests focus on defining the roles and the mechanisms of enzymes and other challenging proteins in complex biological processes and on developing technologies to facilitate these studies. The current research in the Craik lab focuses on the chemical biology of proteolytic and protein degradation enzymes, receptors and membrane transporters. A particular emphasis of his work is on identifying the roles and regulating the activity of key proteins associated with infectious diseases, neurodegeneration and cancer. He is also interested in developing novel methods to biophysically characterize challenging proteins as well as their complexes. These studies coupled with his global substrate profiling, antibody engineering and noninvasive imaging efforts are providing a better understanding of both the chemical make-up and the biological importance of these critical proteins to aid in the rapid detection, monitoring and control of infectious disease, neurological disorders and cancer.

Dr. Craik is a council member of the American Association of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.