Keriann Backus is an Associate Professor with appointments in the Departments of Biological Chemistry and Chemistry and Biochemistry. Dr. Backus received a BS in Chemistry and BA in Latin American Studies from Brown University. Her doctoral research was conducted in the laboratories of Benjamin Davis (Oxford) and Clifton Barry (NIH, NIAID) as a 2007 Rhodes Scholar and an NIH Oxford Cambridge Scholar. Dr. Backus completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Benjamin Cravatt.

Dr. Backus is best known for developing pioneering chemoproteomic methods that dramatically expanded the scope of potentially druggable targets. Her methods contributed to the discovery of multiple lead compounds currently in clinical trials for autoimmune and cancer indications. At UCLA, Dr. Backus’s research group develops and applies cutting edge proteomic technologies to broadly shed light on the functional and therapeutically relevant proteome. Dr. Backus's research has been recognized by numerous awards, including a Beckman Young Investigator, DARPA Young Faculty Award, a V Scholar Research Award, Packard Fellowship, NIH New Innovator Award, and Ono Breakthrough Science Initiative Award.