Charles Craik is a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is also the founder and director of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program. He received his education and training 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 enzymes, receptors and membrane transporters. A particular emphasis of his work is on identifying the roles and regulating the activity of proteases and degradative enzyme complexes associated with infectious diseases 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 makeup and the biological importance of these critical proteins to aid in the rapid detection, monitoring and control of infectious disease, neurological disorders and cancer.

Craik is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Academy of Inventors. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017 and was awarded the Emil Thomas Kaiser Award by the Protein Society in 2016.