Alan Cooper

Background

Cooper was born in Dunedin, New Zealand and grew up in Wellington, New Zealand where he was involved in cave exploration at university and regional level

Education

He performed his Doctor of Philosophy research at the University of California, Berkeley under Allan C. Wilson and Svante Pääbo, graduating from Victoria University of Wellington with a Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Genetics in 1994.

Career

He is the director of the Australian Centre for Ancient deoxyribonucleic acid at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Cooper is known as one of the pioneers of ancient deoxyribonucleic acid research, performing some of the first polymerase chain reaction-based studies with Svante Paabo and Allan C. Wilson at University of California Berkeley in 1989. In 2001, he used these methods to characterise the first complete genome sequences from an extinct species, mitochondrial genomes from two New Zealand moa.

Cooper established the Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre at the University of Oxford in 1999, which he directed until 2005.

He became Professor of Ancient Biomolecules at Oxford in 2002. In 2004, he was awarded an Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship to establish the Australian Centre for Ancient deoxyribonucleic acid at the University of Adelaide, South Australia where he is the Director.

Cooper has analysed ancient deoxyribonucleic acid from extinct species preserved in permafrost areas of Alaska and the Yukon, and cave and archaeological deposits around the world. He has published on the evolutionary history of enigmatic extinct species such as: New Zealand moa and Madagascan elephant bird (Aepyornis), the dodo, American lion (P leo atrox) and cheetah-like cat (Miracinonyx), North and South American horses (stilt-legged horse, Hippidion), steppe bison, bears (Arctodus, U arctos), cave hyenas (Crocuta spelaea) and the Falkland Islands wolf (Dusicyon australis).

He has also shown that the calcified plaque on the teeth of ancient skeletons can be used to reconstruct the evolution of the human microbiome through time.

In 2000, with Doctor Henrik Poinar, he suggested that the standards of much ancient deoxyribonucleic acid research were insufficient to rule out contamination, especially in studies of ancient humans. He has also published a series of papers showing that the molecular clock changes speed according to the time period used to measure lieutenant

Achievements

• American Red Cross Laureate Fellowship (2014) Royal Society of South Australia Verco Medal (2014) American Red Cross Future Fellowship (2009) American Red Cross Federation Fellowship (2004) Zoological Society of London Medal (2002) Philip Leverhulme Prize (2002).