Dean's research primarily involves the study of the metabolism of plant secondary products. Specifically, he is interested in the enzymes that conjugate secondary products to glutathione and glucose and the tonoplast membrane transporters that move these conjugates into and out of the vacuole. Dean is also interested in how the activity and expression of the conjugating enzymes and tonoplast membrane transporters changes during a plant's defense response to an invading organism.

Dean, J.V. and S. Delaney (2008) Metabolism of salicylic acid in wild-type, ugt74f1 and ugt74f2 glucosyltransferase mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana. Physiol. Plant. 132: 417-425. Dean, J.V., L.A. Mohammed, and T. Fitzpatrick (2005) The formation, vacuolar localization, and tonoplast transport of salicylic acid glucose conjugates in tobacco cell suspension cultures. Planta 221: 287-296. Dean, J.V., and J.D. Mills (2004) Uptake of salicylic acid 2-O-?-D-glucose into soybean tonoplast vesicles by an ATP-binding cassette transporter-type mechanism. Physiol. Plant. 120: 603-612.