Jack D. Keene (born June 22, 1947, Jacksonville, Florida) is a James B. Duke Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University. Keene studies the regulation of RNA and the mechanisms of RNA-protein interactions. He identified RNA recognition motif (RRM) proteins, which are the largest family of RNA-binding proteins. He isolated the first human autoimmune antigen. He formalized the posttranscriptional operon and regulon (PTRO) model to describe global gene regulation, and proposed the RNA regulon hypothesis to better understand post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs encoding proteins. Keene introduced the RIP (ribonucleoprotein immunoprecipitation) protocol for isolating specific mRNPs, which has become a tool for the mapping of mRNA targets of specific RBPs.