Department of Urology

Roger Klein, MD, PhD

Born in Texas, Roger grew up in Germany, England, and Michigan. He attended the College of Wooster in Wooster, OH for his undergraduate training, where he majored in Biochemistry and Physics. He attended medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Computational and Molecular Biophysics studying the role of microbial adhesion in urinary tract infection pathogenesis. He spent time in Mekelle, Ethiopia during his fourth year of medical school learning about the practice of urology in a global context. Roger also enjoys thinking about medical education and curricular design, and received both the Teaching Citation and CIRTL Scholar certification during his time at Wash U. In his free time, Roger likes to watch baseball, camp, play board games, and cook.

Education & Training

  • BA - Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Physics, College of Wooster
  • PhD - Computational and Molecular Biophysics, Washington University in St. Louis
  • MD - Washington University in St. Louis

Representative Publications

Klein RD and Hultgren SJ. Urinary Tract Infections: Microbial Pathogenesis, Host-Pathogen Interactions, and Novel Treatment Strategies. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2020 Feb 18.

Maddirala AR, Klein RD, Pinkner JS, Kalas V, Hultgren SJ, and Janetka JW. Biphenyl Gal and GalNAc FmlH Lectin Antagonists of Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC): Optimization through Iterative Rational Drug Design. J Med Chem. 2019 Jan 24;62(2):467-479.

Klein RD, Shu, Q, Cusumano ZT, Nagamatsu K, Gualberto N, Lynch A, Wu C, Wang W, Wagner N, Jain N, Pinkner J, Hultgren SJ, Frieden C, and Chapman M. Functional Analysis of CsgE Reveals Regions Essential for Amyloid Fiber Formation in E. coli. mBio. 2018. 17;9(4):e01349-18

Spaulding CN, Klein RD, Ruer S, Kau AL, Schreiber HL, Cusumano ZT, Dodson KW, Pinkner JS, Fremont DH, Janetka JW, Remaut H, Gordon JI and Hultgren SJ. Selective depletion of uropathogenic E. coli from the gut by a FimH antagonist. Nature. 2017. 546(7659):528-32.

Spaulding CN, Klein RD, Schreiber HL, Janetka JQ, and Hultgren SJ. Precision antimicrobial therapeutics: the path of least resistance? NPJ Biofilms Microbiomes. 2018 Feb 27;4:4

Abstracts and Presentations

Microbiology Society Annual Conference. April 2018. Birmingham, UK.

Gordon Conference: Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction. July 2017. Newport, RI.

ASBMB Annual Meeting. April 2017. Chicago, IL.

FASEB Conference: Protein Aggregation in Health and Disease. June 2017. Steamboat Springs, CO.

AAMC Central Group on Educational Affairs Annual Meeting. March 2017. Chicago, IL.

Gordon Conference: Molecular Structure Elucidation, August 2016. West Dover, VT.

CIRTL All-Network Teaching-as-Research Presentation Session. April 2016. Virtual.

Biophysical Society. February 2016, Los Angeles, CA.