Keith Roper, Ph.D.

Field: Biological Engineering
Areas of Focus: Biomanufacturing, Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Vaccine Production

Expertise

• Gene vector delivery
• Infectious disease
• Viral vaccine production
• Nano-/Biotechnology
• Photonics
• Bio-/Nanomaterials
• Electrodynamics simulation
• Biomanufacturing

Bio

D. Keith Roper is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and past president of the Institute of Biological Engineering. He is a professor and the department head of Biological Engineering at Utah State University (USU), where he developed wastewater epidemiology to track COVID-19 prevalence. He is the associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology and a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Committee for Continuous Manufacturing for Modernization of Pharmaceutical Production.

Previously, he was the associate director of USU’s Microelectronics-Photonics graduate program, a professor of Chemical Engineering, and held the Charles W. Oxford Professorship of Emerging Technologies at the University of Arkansas (UA). From 2012-2016, he was a program director in Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). From 2014-2016, he was appointed to lead NSF’s Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) and Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN). He was faculty at University of Utah from 2001-2007. He was chief scientific officer of Celux Scientific. He has one international award and 12 citations for Outstanding Professor, Mentor, or Researcher at university, college, and department levels. From 1994-2000, he led campaigns at Merck & Co. to develop clinical vaccines against S. pneumonia and H. influenzae and clinical candidates using plasmid DNA and viral vectors against HIV. He researched methicillin-resistant S. aureus. From 2006-2008, he prepared 300 kg phytochlorin e6 at Frontier Scientific, Inc. for photodynamic cancer therapy. From 1993-2003, he helped design adsorptive membranes for virus capture with Pall, Sartorius, and Millipore.

Dr. Roper’s research combats disease and advances energy and water sustainability using systems modeling and computational electrodynamics to enhance interactions in bio-, nano- and meta-materials that modulate biological activity. Since 2001, his research has been awarded $11.3 million in support. It has been featured in over 123 media outlets (e.g., Bioscience (2017) 67:877-883) and been recognized by DOE, EPA, and NSF. He developed novel methods to manufacture cells, detect and propagate virus, and monitor COVID-19 via wastewater epidemiology. He has expertise in simulation (e.g., computational electrodynamics); nanofabrication via top-down (e.g., EBL, CVD, evaporation, FIB, plasma etch, sputtering) and self-assembly of nano/bio and metamaterials; and characterization using microscopies (SEM, TEM, AFM, LSCM, MRI, optical) and spectroscopies (EELS, ICP, SERS, SPR, TUV).