Dr. Kean has his PhD in Pharmacy and a MSc in Pharmaceutical Analysis. As a multi-disciplinary researcher he has spanned fields from early on, beginning with a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry and Pharmacology. This has continued this throughout his career. In his graduate studies, he developed next generation peptide-targeted polymer-drug delivery systems. In his post-doctoral training, he studied mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) engineering. MSCs were targeted to injured tissue using peptide- or antibody-directed approaches. From there, he spanned out into engineering of human and rabbit cartilage sheets, muscle constructs, and controlling chondrocyte de-differentiation. Next, he went on to become an instructor in the department of Orthopedic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Lastly, he joined the UCF College of Medicine in August 2019.
Dr. Kean is currently involved in extending his research on cell engineering of chondrocytes and their progenitors to create reporter cell systems to study media, drug and biomaterial effects on chondro- and osteo-genesis. Leveraging that knowledge to improve tissue-engineering of cartilage. In addition, he is applying his biomaterial and cell engineering approach in 3D printing and bioprinting. NIH’s iCite evaluation of Dr. Kean’s research impact (18 publications) has a weighted relative citation ratio of 51.01, a highly influential set of articles. The top ranked articles are in the 90th percentile and stem from his previous studies on chitosan and its derivatives in biomedical applications. Dr. Kean has over ten years of teaching, mentoring, and research experience. He has put in tireless hours mentoring research students at undergraduate, graduate and post-doc level. With experience in industry, he holds 2 patents in addition to his academic contributions through book chapters, reviews, and primary literature. He has presented at numerous national and international conferences.