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.[1] Having seen the symptoms of HIV/AIDS in young gay men in the U.S., Cooper returned to Australia and resumed his role at St Vincent's Hospital, where he recognised the same illness in young Australian men who had recently travelled to the U.S. He is credited together with Professor Ron Penny of diagnosing the first case of HIV in Australia in 1982[5][6][7] and published a seminal case series on HIV seroconversion illness in The Lancet in 1985.[8] He also reported the first observation of HIV transmission during breastfeeding in the world in 1985.[9] He was awarded a Doctor of Medicine by UNSW in 1983 and 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).[1]
In 1991, he was named chair of the WHO Global Program on AIDS committee on clinical research and drug development, and in 1994, he was appointed a full professor and awarded a Doctor of Science by UNSW.[1] In 1996, he and two other HIV/AIDS researchers, Joep Lange from the Netherlands and Praphan Phanuphak from Thailand, founded a research centre in Bangkok named HIV-NAT (HIV Netherlands Australia Thailand Research Collaboration).[7] Cooper, Lange and Phanuphak also established a program to increase access to antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in Cambodia.[1]
Cooper died at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney on 18 March 2018 after suffering for a short period from a rare autoimmune inflammatory disease.[12][13][14][15] He was survived by his wife, Dorrie and two daughters, Becky and Ilana.[16]
In 2017 his accomplishments were acknowledged by a motion in the Australian Senate.[19] 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".[20]
^ ab"Officer of the Order of Australia". It's an Honour. 26 January 2003. "For service to medicine as a clinician, researcher and leading contributor in the field of HIV/AIDS research, and to the development of new treatment approaches."
