Prestigious honour for New Zealand medical researcher

Fellowship of the Academy is based on exceptional contributions to the medical sciences, in the form of original discovery or of sustained contributions to scholarship.

Professor Cooper’s research has led to major advances in the understanding of disease mechanisms in diabetes and related syndromes and to the discovery of several new experimental therapies for these conditions. Amongst these, he discovered the hormone amylin and developed amylin-replacement therapy for diabetes, which led to his founding Amylin (UK) Ltd and United States biopharmaceutical company, Amylin Pharmaceuticals.

Professor Cooper is professor of Biochemistry and Clinical Biochemistry at the School of Biological Sciences and the Department of Medicine at the University of Auckland. He is one of eight principal investigators at the Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery, New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence targeting human disease.

He is also professor in Discovery and Experimental Medicine at the University of Manchester and, at the same institution, Director of the Centre for Advanced Discovery and Experimental Therapeutics, the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre, and the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

For the past three years, he has also held the appointment of Visiting Professor in Experimental Therapeutics in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford.

The Academy of Medical Sciences, founded in 1998, is the independent body in the United Kingdom representing the diversity of medical science. Professor Cooper was amongst 44 new Fellows elected in April 2013, bringing the membership of the Academy to 1,095. A formal ceremony for the admission of new Fellows will be held in London on Wednesday 26 June.