Keith B. Ward
Papers
2
Total Citations
65
H-Index
2
About
Keith B. Ward is a structural biologist whose pioneering work in the late 1980s and early 1990s helped lay the groundwork for automated and computational approaches to protein crystallography. His 1988 paper on the automatic preparation of protein crystals using laboratory robotics and automated visual inspection was notably ahead of its time, demonstrating that robotic systems could be harnessed to streamline one of the most labor-intensive bottlenecks in structural biology — crystal growth and screening. This work, which has garnered 31 citations, helped inspire a broader movement toward high-throughput crystallography that would become essential in the genomics era. Complementing this, his 1991 contribution on methods of analysis of protein crystal images (34 citations) addressed the critical challenge of interpreting crystallization outcomes systematically and reproducibly, bridging wet-lab experimentation with emerging computational tools. Together, these works reflect Ward's forward-thinking vision of integrating automation and image analysis into structural biology workflows, contributions that remain relevant as the field continues to embrace robotics, machine learning, and high-throughput methods in protein structure determination.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Methods of analysis of protein crystal images34 citations · 1991
- 2