David Cooper

David Albert Cooper (19 April 1949 – 18 March 2018) was an Australian HIV/AIDS researcher, immunologist, professor at the University of New South Wales, and the director of the Kirby Institute. He and Professor Ron Penny diagnosed the first case of HIV in Australia.

Education Born in 1949 to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Cooper attended the Cranbrook School, graduating aged 15, then attended the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1969 and an MBBS from Sydney Medical School in 1972. After completing his residency and fellowships in internal medicine (immunology) and pathology (immunology) at St Vincent's Hospital, he was awarded a postgraduate research scholarship by the University of New South Wales to study immunology.

Cooper travelled to Boston, Massachusetts and worked as a research fellow in cancer immunology in 1981—the beginning of the outbreak of HIV/AIDS in the United States. and published a seminal case series on HIV seroconversion illness in The Lancet in 1985. He also reported the first observation of HIV transmission during breastfeeding in the world in 1985. He was awarded a Doctor of Medicine by UNSW in 1983 and was appointed a senior lecturer at the university in 1986. In the same year he was named director of the newly founded National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research (now the Kirby Institute). He was also a past president of the International AIDS Society.

Personal life

Cooper was married with two daughters.

He died at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney on 18 March 2018 after suffering for a short period from a rare autoimmune inflammatory disease.

Honours Cooper was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2003 "for service to medicine as a clinician, researcher, and leading contributor to HIV/AIDS research, and to the development of new treatment approaches". In 2016, he was awarded the James Cook Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales.

In 2017, his accomplishments were acknowledged by a motion in the Australian Senate. In recognition of his life's work Cooper was posthumously appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the 2018 Queens's Birthday Honours for "eminent service to medicine, particularly in the area of HIV/AIDS research, as a clinician, scientist and administrator, to the development of treatment therapies, and to health programs in South East Asia and the Pacific".