Dr Ryan Kean

Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology

Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

Dr Ryan Kean is a lecturer in Clinical Microbiology within the Biological and Biomedical Sciences department at GCU. He graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Microbiology from Glasgow Caledonian University before undertaking a PhD in a collaboration between the Universities of the West of Scotland and Glasgow with Prof Craig Williams and Prof Gordon Ramage. Subsequently, he worked as a research assistant at the University of Glasgow Dental School in an industrially collaborative project with GlaxoSmithKline assessing novel actives for oral health before moving to GCU in 2018.

Dr Kean’s research focusses in the field of infectious disease and clinically relevant bacterial and fungal pathogens. In particular, he is interested in modelling and understanding the role for microbial biofilms in conferring tolerance to antimicrobials and facilitating pathogen transmission and survival. He is a member of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Public Health and Infections group and part of the microbiology work stream of the Safeguarding Health through Infection Prevention research group.


He is the principal investigator on a variety of currently funded research projects including the investigation of host-pathogen interactions of endodontic infections in collaboration with Newcastle University and the University of Glasgow. He is also the lead investigator of other funded, collaborative projects looking at developing novel quantitative assays for microbial community analysis to allow the efficacy testing of novel actives for microbiome-based disorders.

Externally, he is a principal investigator of the Glasgow Biofilm Research Network, GCU scientific representative for the National Biofilms Innovation Centre, an ECR rep for the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance, and a member of the ESCMID Study Group for Biofilms. In addition, he is an associate editor for the Critical Reviews in Microbiology journal.

Further details of Dr Keans’ research and publication history can be located within his research profile.