Technology Review Names Cravatt "One of World's Top Young Innovators" (August 2002)

The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) Associate Professor Benjamin Cravatt (TSRI class of '97) has been named one of the "TR100," the world's top young innovators according to Technology Review magazine, whose editorial focus includes information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology.

The TR100 is a group of 100 creative individuals under age 35 drawn from a broad spectrum of fields, whose research the magazine predicts will shape how we live and work in the future. According to Technology Review, "chemical biologist Benjamin Cravatt is developing tools to illuminate the roles of proteins and enzymes in humans and animals.

Cravatt and colleagues have synthesized dozens of fluorescent probes that chemically bind to enzymes in laboratory samples of healthy and diseased tissues, then light up when excited by a laser scanner. The technique can show which enzymes are more or less active in cancerous cells, which could herald a breakthrough for proteomics? the attempt to identify the structures and functions of human proteins. Cravatt's protein-activity-based approach represents an advance over methods that merely infer protein function by comparing the abundance of proteins in samples...." For more information, see the Technology Review web site.

Research Consortium Recruiting Volunteers to Study the Role of Genetics in Cancer Development and Patient Care By Karen Stuyck Within the past 16 years, scientists have identified approximately 50 different genes that predispose people to cancer. While the most well-known inherited cancers are probably breast and ovarian cancers associated with mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, "genes are being linked to the development of every tumor type from kidney cancer, colon cancer, and certain endocrine cancers to melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers," said Louise Strong, M.D., a professor in the Section of Clinical Cancer Genetics at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. To help researchers learn more about how genes affect the development of cancer and how information about genetic susceptibility can best be integrated into patient care, the Texas Cancer Genetics Consortium is recruiting people at high risk of cancer who might be willing to participate in research studies. Funded by the National Cancer Institute in 1998, the Texas Cancer Genetics Consortium is part of the nationwide Cancer Genetics Network. M. D. Anderson is the coordinating institution for the consortium, and the other participating institutions are Baylor College of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. While the Texas group is focusing on individuals at high risk, other network institutions are recruiting volunteers from the general population for their studies.