Dr. Benjamin Turk

Biography

Benjamin Turk is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine. He holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtained in 1999, and a BA from Oberlin College, received in 1990. Additionally, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School in 2004. His research centers on understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern cellular phosphorylation networks, particularly how these networks may be rewired in cancer cells. With a focus on protein kinases, he has utilized mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics to catalog over 100,000 phosphorylation sites in mammalian cells. His group investigates the basic mechanisms by which kinases target specific substrates, aiming to identify new kinase-substrate interactions at a proteomic scale. Furthermore, Turk's studies extend to examining cancer-associated kinase mutations and their influence on the effectiveness of kinase inhibitor treatments. His research contributes valuable insights into the pharmacological targeting of pathways relevant to disease.

Research Interests

Experience