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Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences
Max D. Cooper, M.D.
Emory University School of Medicine
The sea lamprey isn't much to look at, and is a predatory nuisance
by most accounts, but for Max Cooper, its beauty is more than skin-deep.
This primitive vertebrate, and a particular protein antibody it
produces, may hold the secret to better diagnosing and treating
human disease. For now, it is the most recent example of the transformative
research that has characterized Dr. Cooper's distinguished career
in immunology and infectious disease.
A pediatrician by training, Dr. Cooper's trailblazing research
with another animal species—the chicken—led to some of
the most important organizing principles of the immune system. Those
principles included the identification of two types of white blood
cells (T and B lymphocytes); how they work to protect against infection;
and what happens when they act abnormally to cause lymphomas, leukemias,
and autoimmune diseases. As Anthony Fauci, M.D., director of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National
Institutes of Health, said, "It is not an exaggeration to state
that virtually every aspect of our understanding of the human immune
system in health and disease, particularly lymphoid malignancies,
derives in large part from the seminal discoveries of Dr. Cooper
on the ontogeny of the immune system."
Dr. Cooper joined the Emory University School of Medicine (Emory)
this year as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, but his
primary appointment is professor within the department of pathology
and laboratory medicine. He also holds appointments as professor
at the Emory Vaccine Center and at the Emory Center for AIDS Research
at the Rollins School of Public Health.
Prior to joining Emory, Dr. Cooper spent 40 years at the University
of Alabama School of Medicine (UAB) where he was professor in the
departments of medicine, pathology, microbiology, and pediatrics.
Dr. Cooper was also UAB's director of its division of developmental
and clinical immunology in the department of medicine for more than
two decades, which he headed after serving as director of the cellular
immunobiology unit at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center for 12
years.
In addition to his outstanding reputation as a physician-researcher,
Dr. Cooper has influenced the careers of more than 130 graduate
students and fellows, a list that includes many individuals now
leaving a mark on medical research and education in their own right.
As Drs. Thomas J. Lawley, dean of Emory, and Robert Rich, dean at
UAB, said, "Dr. Cooper's career is a model to which physicians,
scientists, and medical educators everywhere can aspire."
Dr. Cooper earned his undergraduate degree from the University
of Mississippi and his M.D. degree from Tulane University School
of Medicine, where he served as a resident in the department of
pediatrics after completing his internship at Saginaw General Hospital
in Michigan. A member of numerous national and international advisory
committees in immunology and infectious disease, Dr. Cooper was
president of both the Clinical Immunological Society and the American
Association of Immunologists. Presently, he is vice president and
president-elect of the Henry Kunkel Society at Rockefeller University,
a group that encourages clinical, patient-centered research, especially
in the field of immunology.
Dr. Cooper became the first faculty member from an Alabama institution
to join the National Academy of Sciences with his election to the
Institute of Medicine in 1988. A prolific writer, Dr. Cooper has
served on the editorial boards of more than 30 scholarly journals
and authored more than 220 book chapters and 420 scientific papers.
About the Award
for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences
The AAMC Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical
Sciences was established in 1947 and recognizes outstanding clinical
or laboratory research conducted by a medical school faculty member.
Find out more about the Award
for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences.
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