Professor of Biochemistry and Director of Research, University of Warwick

David Roper has a background in microbial biochemistry and was awarded an MRC Career Development Award fellowship at the University of York mentored by Professor Guy Dodson FRS and Professor Dale Wigley FRS prior to taking an academic position at the University of Warwick, where he has now been promoted to Professor of Biochemistry and Structural Biology.  The Roper group uses interdisciplinary approaches from basic microbiology to molecular structure determination by X-ray crystallography, relating enzyme and protein mechanism to structure and function at a cellular level. Current areas of research include: (1) Bacterial cell division and its relationship to cell wall biosynthesis (2) The molecular basis of antibiotic resistance including signalling systems and antibiotic mechanism. His research encompasses both fundamental and translation approaches including assay development and drug discovery approaches. In addition, his research group uses several approaches to reengineer pathway intermediates as chemical probes, substrates and inhibitors to allows novel insight to the biology underpinning these pathways which may lead to biotechnological exploration and exploitation. This includes the design and synthesis of chemical mimetic small molecule probes for mechanistic and translational studies.