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ACAD Staff Profile
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Professor Alan Cooper
Federation Fellow, School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
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| Telephone |
+61 8 830 35950 |
| Position |
Director, ACAD |
| Email |
alan.cooper@adelaide.edu.au |
| Fax |
+61 8 830 34364 |
| Building/Room |
North Terrace Campus, Darling Building, Rm 205b |
| Org Unit |
Ecology
& Evolutionary Biology (School of Earth & Environmental Sciences)
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Biography/Background
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Prof. Alan Cooper was awarded a prestigious Australian Research
Council Federation Fellowship award in 2004, allowing him to move from
Oxford University (where he was the Director of the Henry Wellcome Ancient
Biomolecules Centre) to Adelaide in 2005 to establish the Australian Centre
for Ancient DNA (ACAD). This international standard research facility
was formally opened by the Premier, Mike Rann in August 2006 and provides
the specialist equipment and ultra-sterile working environment required
for the study of minute traces of preserved genetic material.
ACAD has been designed to provide a centre for evolutionary research in
the Southern Hemisphere, particularly the impacts and timing of environmental
change (eg climate, humans) on animals, plants and microbes by measuring
the genetic records preserved in bones, teeth, leaves and seeds, faeces,
and other remains from caves, museums and even sediment cores from lakes,
rivers and marine sites.
Prof. Cooper specialises in using ancient DNA to record and study evolutionary
processes in real time, especially those associated with environmental
change. His work ranges over timescales of hundreds of years old (eg museum
specimens) to material well beyond the ca. 60 kyr range of carbon-dating,
such as permafrost-preserved bones of mammals and sediment dating to >300
kyr. His research is characterised by multi-disciplinary approaches involving
the combination of information from areas such as geology, archaeology,
anthropology, and even forensics to provide novel views of evolution,
population genetics and palaeoecology. Recent research highlights include
the use of Ice Age mammal populations to record the effects of environmental
change, the first complete mitochondrial genome sequences of any extinct
species (two New Zealand moas), and the study of how evolutionary rates
change over time.
Prof. Cooper's current research features studies of Australian megafaunal
species, permafrost preserved material from the Arctic and Antarctic,
ancient human DNA (modern human, Neandertals and Flores hominids), and
DNA from sedimentary deposits (marine, terrestrial and freshwater). He
is also heavily involved in developing new molecular biology techniques
to both improve the ability to recover DNA from the past (eg nuclear genomes,
mass sequencing approaches), and to analyse the authenticity of aDNA data.
This involves recording how DNA is damaged over time, and the effects
on retrieved sequence information (which is relevant for forensics work).
Current fieldwork areas include Australia, Beringia and North America,
South America, South Africa, China and New Zealand.
A further major research theme concerns the use of molecular clocks to
estimate the timing of past evolutionary events. Recent work with ancient
DNA data suggests that evolutionary rates may change according to the
time period over which they are measured, and has major implications for
our ability to date recent evolutionary events. |
Research Areas
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| Ancient DNA, evolution, palaeoecology, human/mammalian/avian,
molecular evolution, molecular clocks, mass extinctions/palaeontology,
biogeography. |
Scientific Service
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Editor, Ancient DNA Newsletter, 1992-1995
NERC Electoral College, 2004/2005, ARC OzReader 2004-present
Referee: ARC, NERC, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, numerous journals. |
Qualifications
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Academic history:
2005-present: Australian Federation Fellow, University of Adelaide,
Australia
2005-present: Director, Australian Centre for Ancient DNA
2002-2005: Professor of Ancient Biomolecules, Oxford University
1999-2005: Director, Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre, Oxford
University
2001-2005: Wellcome Trust University Award Fellow, Dept of Zoology,
Oxford University
1999-2002: University Research Lecturer, Zoology and Biological Anthropology,
Oxford University
1999-2001: NERC Advanced Fellow, Zoology and Biological Anthropology,
Oxford University
1998-2001: Julian Huxley Research Fellowship, Balliol College, Oxford
University
Post-doctoral positions:
1996-1999: Dept of Biological Anthropology, University of Oxford
1995-1996: Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford
1993-1995: Smithsonian Institution, Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Wash.
DC
1994: PhD (Biochemistry and Genetics), Victoria University of Wellington,
NZ
1987: BSc Hons (2:1) (Biochemistry and Genetics), Victoria University
of Wellington, NZ
1986: BSc (Biochemistry and Physiology), Victoria University of Wellington,
NZ
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