{"entity":{"id":"kevan-shokat","kind":"person","name":"Kevan M. Shokat","aka":[],"tldr":"The chemist whose lab found the hidden pocket in KRAS G12C that made the 'undruggable' target druggable.","summary":"Kevan Shokat is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF, within the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. A chemical biologist specialising in KRAS and kinase inhibitors, his 2013 discovery of covalent inhibitors binding the switch-II pocket of KRAS G12C made a target long called undruggable druggable and opened the path to sotorasib and adagrasib. His papers include the Nature report that K-Ras(G12C) inhibitors allosterically control GTP affinity and effector interactions and the Nature paper on a chemical switch for inhibitor-sensitive alleles of any protein kinase, the bump-hole approach. His work bears on lung, colorectal and pancreatic cancer.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"UCSF profile","url":"https://profiles.ucsf.edu/search/?searchtype=people&searchfor=Kevan%20M.%20Shokat"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Shokat%20KM%5BAuthor%5D"},{"label":"Google Scholar","url":"https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Kevan%20M.%20Shokat"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["nsclc","colorectal","pancreatic"],"sections":[],"technologies":["kras-inhibitors","kinase-inhibitors"],"targets":["kras"],"drugs":["sotorasib","adagrasib"],"companies":[],"institutions":["ucsf"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, UCSF; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute","institutionId":"ucsf","specialisms":["Chemical biology","KRAS","Kinase inhibitors"],"profiles":[{"label":"UCSF profile","url":"https://profiles.ucsf.edu/search/?searchtype=people&searchfor=Kevan%20M.%20Shokat"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Shokat%20KM%5BAuthor%5D"},{"label":"Google Scholar","url":"https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Kevan%20M.%20Shokat"}],"papers":[{"title":"K-Ras(G12C) inhibitors allosterically control GTP affinity and effector interactions","journal":"Nature","year":2013,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12796","doi":"10.1038/nature12796"},{"title":"A chemical switch for inhibitor-sensitive alleles of any protein kinase","journal":"Nature","year":2000,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/35030148","doi":"10.1038/35030148"}],"orcid":"0000-0001-8590-7741"},"route":"/people/kevan-shokat/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"colorectal","kind":"cancer","name":"Colorectal cancer","route":"/cancers/colorectal/"},{"id":"kras-g12c-nsclc","kind":"cancer","name":"KRAS G12C-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer","route":"/cancers/kras-g12c-nsclc/"},{"id":"kras-g12c-pdac","kind":"cancer","name":"KRAS G12C-mutant pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma","route":"/cancers/kras-g12c-pdac/"},{"id":"metastatic-pdac","kind":"cancer","name":"Metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma","route":"/cancers/metastatic-pdac/"},{"id":"nsclc","kind":"cancer","name":"Non-small-cell lung cancer","route":"/cancers/nsclc/"},{"id":"pancreatic","kind":"cancer","name":"Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma","route":"/cancers/pancreatic/"}],"technology":[{"id":"kras-inhibitors","kind":"technology","name":"KRAS & RAS inhibitors","route":"/technologies/kras-inhibitors/"},{"id":"kinase-inhibitors","kind":"technology","name":"Small-molecule kinase inhibitors","route":"/technologies/kinase-inhibitors/"}],"target":[{"id":"kras","kind":"target","name":"KRAS","route":"/targets/kras/"}],"drug":[{"id":"adagrasib","kind":"drug","name":"Adagrasib","route":"/drugs/adagrasib/"},{"id":"sotorasib","kind":"drug","name":"Sotorasib","route":"/drugs/sotorasib/"}],"institution":[{"id":"ucsf","kind":"institution","name":"UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center","route":"/institutions/ucsf/"}],"roadmap":[{"id":"pancreatic-roadmap","kind":"roadmap","name":"Pancreatic cancer roadmap: from Whipple's operation to gemcitabine, FOLFIRINOX, adjuvant chemotherapy, PARP inhibition, KRAS inhibition, vaccines and the surveillance question","route":"/roadmaps/pancreatic-roadmap/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-ostrem-kras-g12c-nature-2013","kind":"paper","name":"Ostrem and Shokat: the hidden pocket that made KRAS G12C druggable","route":"/key-papers/paper-ostrem-kras-g12c-nature-2013/"}]}}