David Roper has a background in molecular biology & biochemistry and was awarded an MRC Career Development Award fellowship at the University of York prior to taking an academic position at the University of Warwick, where he has now Professor of Biochemistry and Director of Research for the School of Life Sciences. 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. His research encompasses both fundamental and translation approaches including assay development and drug discovery approaches. In addition, his research group uses a number of 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. Research in the Roper group is focused on the way in which pathogenic bacteria make their cell walls to grow, how that is related to the ways in which they divide and reproduce and also the relationship of these processes to the discovery and resistance to antibiotics.He was a awarded a BBSRC-Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship and was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of chemistry in 2015, was awarded an Academy of Medical Sciences, Hamied Foundation UK-India AMR Visiting Professorships in 2018 and a Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University New York visiting Schaefer Research Scholarship in 2020.