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Pathology

Houston, Texas

Department of Pathology
Pathology
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Faculty

Thomas A. Cooper, M.D.Professor

Thomas A. Cooper

Education

  1. B.S. Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA, cum laude with honors, 1973-1977

  2. M.D. Temple University Medical School, Philadelphia, PA, 1978-1982

Post-doctoral Training

  1. University of California, San Francisco, CA

Specialty

  1. Molecular biology

Area of Interest

  1. Alternative splicing in development and disease

Current Position

  1. Professor, Department of Pathology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX

  2. Professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology (joint appointment), Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX

Honors and Awards

  1. 1981 NIH Medical Research Trainee predoctoral award

  2. NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (NIH), 1982-1985

  3. Bank of America Giannini Foundation Postdoctoral Award, 1985-1986

  4. March of Dimes Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award, 1991-1994

  5. Established Investigator Award, American Heart Association, 1992-1997

  6. Blaffer Lecturer, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 1998

  7. Michael E. DeBakey, M.D. Excellence in Research Award, 1999

  8. Named to the S. Donald Greenberg Chair of Pathology, 2003

Representative Publications

  1. Please note that this is a SELECTED list

  2. Ward, A. and Cooper, T.A. (2010) The pathobiology of alternative splicing. Amer. J. Path. (In press).

  3. Cooper, T.A. Chemical reversal of the RNA gain of function in myotonic dystrophy. (2009) Proc. Nat'l Acad. Sci. (In press).

  4. Wang, G.S., Kuyumcu-Martinez, N.M., Mathur, N., Wehrens, X.H., and Cooper, T.A. (2009) Protein kinase C inhibition ameliorates the cardiac phenotype of a mouse model for myotonic dystrophy, type 1. J. Clin. Invest. (In Press).

  5. Cooper, T.A., Wan, L., and Dreyfuss, G. RNA and disease. (2009) Cell 136, 777-793.

  6. Kalsotra, A., Tran, D., Ward, A., Xiao, X., Burge, C.B., Castle, J.M., Johnson, J.C., and Cooper, T.A. (2008) A conserved program of regulated alternative splicing during vertebrate heart development . Proc. Nat'l Acad. Sci. 105, 20333-20338.

  7. Castle, J.C., Zhang, C., Shah, J.K, Kulkarni, A.V., Kalsotra, A., Cooper, T.A., and Johnson, J.M. (2008) Differential expression of 24,426 human alternative splicing events and predicted cis-regulation in 48 tissues and cell lines. Nat. Genet. 40, 1416-1425 .

  8. Orengo, J.P., Chambon, P., Metzger, D., Mosier, D.R. , Snipes, G.J. and Cooper, T.A . (2008) Expanded CTG repeats within the DMPK 3' UTR causes severe skeletal muscle wasting in an inducible mouse model for myotonic dystrophy. Proc. Nat'l Acad. Sci. 105, 2646-2651 .

  9. Dhaenens, C.M., Schraen-Maschke, S., Vingtdeux , V., Vanbrussel , E., Leroy, O., Delplanque, J., Tran , H., Delacourte, A., Vermersch, P. , Gruffat, H., Sergeant, A, Mahadevan, M., Ishiura , S., Buée , L:, Cooper, T.A , Caillet-Boudin, M.L., Charlet-Berguerand, N., Sablonnière, B., and Sergeant, N. (2008) Overexpression of MBNL1 fetal isoforms and modified splicing of Tau in the DM1 brain : Two individual consequences of CUG trinucleotide repeats . Experimental Neurology 210, 467-478.

  10. Chapple, J.P., Anthony, K., Martin, T.R., Cooper, J.D., Cooper, T.A., and Gallo, J-M. (2007) Expression, localization and Tau Exon 10 splicing activity of the brain RNA-binding protein TNRC4. Hum. Mol. Gen. 16, 2760-2769 .

  11. Kuyumcu-Martinez, N.M., Wang, G.S., and Cooper, T.A. (2007) Increased steady state levels of CUG-BP1 in Myotonic Dystrophy 1 are due to PKC-mediated hyper-phosphorylation. Mol. Cell 28, 68-78.

  12. Wang, G.S., Kearney, D.L., De Biasi, M., Taffet, G.E., and Cooper, T.A. (2007) Elevation of RNA-binding protein CUGBP1 is an early event in an inducible heart-specific mouse model of myotonic dystrophy. J. Clin. Invest. 117, 2802-2811.

  13. Cooper, T.A. (2006) A reversal of fortune for myotonic dystrophy? N. Engl. J. Med. 355, 1825-1827.

  14. Ranum L.P. and Cooper, T.A. (2006) RNA-mediated neuromuscular disorders. Ann. Rev. Neuroscience, 29, 259-277.

  15. Orengo, J., Bundman, D., and Cooper, T.A. (2006) A bichromatic fluorescent reporter for cell-based screens of alternative splicing Nucl. Acids Res. 34, e148.

  16. Cooper, T.A. (2005) Alternative splicing regulation impacts heart development. Cell 120, 1-2.

  17. Ladd, A.N., Taffet, G.E., Hartley, C., Kearney, D.L. and Cooper, T.A. (2005) Cardiac-specific repression of CELF activity disrupts alternative splicing and causes cardiomyopathy. Mol. Cell. Biol. 25, 6267-6278.

  18. Ho, T., Savkur, R.S., Poulos, M., Mancini., M.M., Swanson, M.S., and Cooper, T.A. (2005) Co-localization of muscleblind with RNA foci is separable from mis-regulation of alternative splicing in myotonic dystrophy. J. Cell Science 118 2923-2933.

  19. Ladd, A.L. Stenberg, M.G., Swanson, M.S., and Cooper, T.A. (2005) A dynamic balance between activation and repression regulates pre-mRNA alternative splicing during heart development. Dev. Dyn. 233, 783-793.

  20. Han, J. and Cooper, T.A. (2005) Characterization of CELF splicing activation and repression domains in vivo. Nucl. Acids Res. 33, 2769-2780.

  21. Ho, T., Bundman, D., Armstrong, D.L., and Cooper, T.A. (2005) Transgenic mice expressing CUG-BP1 reproduce the myotonic dystrophy pattern of splicing. Hum. Mol. Genet. 14, 1539-1547.

  22. Faustino, N.A. and Cooper, T.A. (2005) Identification of putative new splicing targets for ETR-3 using its SELEX sequences. Mol. Cell. Biol. 25, 879-887.

  23. Ho, T., Charlet-B., N., Poulos, M., Singh, G., Swanson, M.S., and Cooper, T.A. (2004) Muscleblind proteins regulate alternative splicing. EMBO J. 23, 3103-3112.

  24. Ladd, A.N. and Cooper, T.A. (2004) Nuclear-cytoplasmic localization of the RNA binding protein ETR-3 is controlled by multiple localization elements. J. Cell Science 117, 3519-3529.

  25. Savkur, R.S., Philips, A.V., Cooper, T.A., Dalton, J.C., Moseley, M.L., Ranum, L.P.W., Day, J.W. (2004) Insulin receptor splicing alteration in myotonic dystrophy type 2. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 74:1309­1313.

  26. Ladd, A.N., Nguyen, N.H. Malhotra, K and Cooper, T.A. (2004) CELF6, a member of the CELF family of RNA binding proteins, regulates MSE-dependent alternative splicing. J. Biol. Chem. 279,17756-17764.

  27. Faustino, N.A. and Cooper, T.A. (2003) RNA splicing and human disease. Genes Dev. 17, 419-437.