Eric Cooper

Associate Professor of Biology

Recent courses taught:

• BIOL202 – Concepts of Biology (Intro to Molecular and Cellular Biology
  BIOL250 – Cancer Biology Honors Mini seminar
• BIOL312 – Molecular Biology of the Cell
• BIOL314 – Immunology

Distinctions (awards, fellowships, grants):

• Dean M. Graham Foundation grant, 2017
  With Dr. Stan Sessions to support students performing summer research.
• Research Corporation for Science Advancement, Single Investigator Cottrell College Science
  Award, 2014-17 “Genetic and biochemical analysis of enzyme clustering in yeast and its application to LeschNyhan syndrome”
• National Science Foundation Research Coordination Networks in Undergraduate Biology Education (NSF RCN-UBE) Incubator Grant, 2014-2016
  “Development of a Build-a-Genome Network to Teach Synthetic Biology at Diverse
  Undergraduate Institutions” Collaboration with Drs. Robert Newman (PI, University of North
  Carolina A&T) and Lisa Scheifele (Loyola University) to launch undergraduate Build-aGenome
  courses and form a network to help other faculty do the same.

Selected publications:

• Narayana Annaluru, Héloïse Muller, Leslie A. Mitchell…Eric M. Cooper (10/80)…Joel S. Bader, Jef D. Boeke and Srinivasan Chandrasegaran. Total Synthesis of a Functional Designer Eukaryotic Chromosome. Science. 2013 344(6179): 55-8
  This publication reports the completion of the first synthetic eukaryotic chromosome, assembled, in part, by undergraduates in the Johns Hopkins Build-a-Genome (BAG) course. I  served as instructor for two semesters; 60 BAG students were authors on this paper.
• Cooper, E.M., Muller, H., Chandrasegaran, S., Bader J.S., and Boeke, J.D. The Build-a Genome course. Gene Synthesis: Methods in Molecular Biology. 2012 [book chapter]
• Muller, H., Annaluru, N., Schwerzmann, J. W., Richardson, S. M., Dymond, J. S., Cooper, E.M., Bader J.S., Boeke, J.D., and Chandrasegaran, S. Assembling Large DNA Segments in Yeast. Gene Synthesis: Methods in Molecular Biology. 2012 [book chapter]
• Annaluru N, Muller H, Ramalingam S, Kandavelou K, London V, Richardson SM, Dymond JS, Cooper EM, Bader JS, Boeke JD, Chandrasegaran S. Assembling DNA fragments by USER fusion. Methods Mol Biol. 2012; 852:77-95. [book chapter]
• Sims J.J., Scavone F., Cooper E.M., Kane L.A., Youle R.J., Boeke J.D., Cohen R.E.. Polyubiquitin-sensor proteins reveal localization and linkage-type dependence of cellular ubiquitin signaling. Nature Methods. 2012 9(3): 303-09
• Cooper, E.M., Boeke, J.D., and Cohen, R.E. Specificity of the BRISC Deubiquitinating Enzyme Is not Due to Selective Binding to K63-linked Polyubiquitin. J Biol Chem. 2010 Apr 2;285(14):10344-52.
• Cooper, E.M., Tsui, C., Kristiansen, T.Z., Pandey, A., Cohen, R.E., and Pickart, C.M. K63- specific Deubiquitination by Two JAMM/MPN+ Complexes: BRISC-associated Brcc36 and Proteasomal Poh1. EMBO J. 2009 Mar 18; 28(6): 621-31.
• Wang, T., Cooper, E.M., Pickart, C.M., Cohen, R.E. and Wolberger, C. The Otubain 1 Deubiquitinating Enzyme Specifically Cleaves K48 Isopeptide Linkages in Polyubiquitin. J Mol Biol. 2009 Mar 6; 386(4): 1011-23.
• Cooper, E.M., Hudson, A.W., Wagstaff, J. and Howley, P.M. Biochemical Analysis of Angelman Syndrome-associated Mutations in the E3 Ubiquitin Ligase E6AP. J Biol Chem. 2004 Sep 24;279(39):41208-17.