Garth Js Cooper

Biography

After completing my medical and pathology training in New Zealand, I was awarded a Nuffield Medical Fellowship to study for a doctorate with Ken Reid in the MRC Immunohistochemistry Unit at the University of Oxford, where I discovered and isolated the beta-cell hormone amylin from the pancreatic islets of type-2 diabetes patients. Starting in Oxford and continuing in the USA and back in New Zealand, I characterised the two intertwined structure-activity relationships of amylin as a hormone and as a cytotoxic amyloid-forming protein. In 1987, I founded and was sole scientific founder of Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biotechnology corporation in San Diego, California, USA. The company, where I was Chief Technical Officer/Executive Board Member until 1992, was set up to progress amylin as a drug lead, which underpinned the development of a new class of anti-diabetic medicines, termed amylin agonists. This ultimately lead to the licencing of pramlintide, the first non-aggregating amylin chimaera, Symlin®, approved by the US Food and Drug Adminsitration for treatment of diabetes in 2005.

Research Interest

Current projects in Manchester The molecular basis of Parkinson’s Disease - PhD The molecular basis of Alzheimer's Disease and Hungtington's Disease The role of copper in diabetic nephropathy Does copper (II) overload contribute to the pathology of diabetic retinopathy? - PhD A molecular basis for the induction and reversal of heart failure in pacing-induced cardiomyopathy - PhD Amyloid-β and Amylin: two amyloids in Alzheimer’s Disease - PhD Developing a new class of anti-amyloid experimental therapeutics in diabetes - PhD