Craig Crews, Ph.D.

Craig M. Crews is the John C. Malone Professor of MCDB and Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacology at Yale University.  Dr. Crews received his B.A. degree in chemistry from the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Harvard University, where he purified and cloned the protein kinase MEK1 in the laboratory of Raymond Erikson. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard, he joined Yale in 1995, where his lab has helped develop the field of chemical biology with particular emphasis on Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) to control intracellular protein levels.

In 2003, Dr. Crews co-founded the biopharma company Proteolix, Inc., based on a next generation proteasome inhibitor synthesized by his lab.  The resulting drug, carfilzomib (Kyprolis™) received FDA approval for the treatment of multiple myeloma in 2012. More recently, Dr. Crews founded the New Haven-based biotech venture, Arvinas, Inc. based on PROTACs, the targeted protein degradation drug development platform technology developed in his lab. In addition, he founded Halda Therapeutics, another New Haven-based company focused on heterobifunctional drug development.  Since its inception in 2003, he has directed the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery.