Andrea M. Cooper

Dr. Cooper began her scientific career at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she described the interaction between macrophages and protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania. Moving to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, she expanded her investigation of leishmaniasis and leishmanial antigens to include the T-cell-mediated response of patients suffering from cutaneous, mucocutaneous and visceral forms of this disease. Dr. Cooper then moved to the Mycobacterial Research Labs at Colorado State University and began studying the protective immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This is a pathogen with a similar lifestyle to Leishmania but one with a much greater impact on world health. Following her appointment to the faculty at Colorado State, she elucidated the essential role of the Interferon-gamma [IFN-y]-Interleukin-12 [IL-12] pathway in protection from mycobacterial disease.