Myositis and Patient Safety

Biography

Robert G Cooper, MD/FRCP, holds a Chair of Medicine (Muscle and Rheumatology) in the MRC/Arthritis Research UK Institute for Ageing and Chronic Disease in the University of Liverpool, and an honorary Chair (Rheumatology) in the Centre for Integrated Genomic Medical Research (CIGMR) in the University of Manchester. He also has clinical commitments at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool, and in Salford Royal Hospital in Greater Manchester, where he has established new tertiary referral clinics for patients with adult onset myositis, and which form the basis for his disease-specific research program. Prof Cooper has long-standing interests in the immunogenetic basis for myositis, and over many years has been instrumental in establishing the National, European and International research collaborations which have been required to assemble the myositis cohorts necessary to deliver the first ever genome wide association scans in myositis, and which have demonstrated the importance of HLA genes in governing disease susceptibility. During this time Prof Cooper has worked closely with internationally renowned colleagues running serology laboratories in Pittsburgh, US, and in Bath, UK, and enabling the discovery of many new myositis specific autoantibodies. The still evolving spectrum of myositis antibodies is proving of great translational utility during the day to day clinical care of individual myositis patients. This work is ongoing. Since taking up his chair in to the University of Liverpool in 2013, which has enabled Prof Cooper to work closely with eminent muscle biologists, he has initiated research investigating non-inflammatory disease mechanisms of weakness and dysfunction in myositis, and in particular mechanisms downstream of endoplasmic reticulum stress activation. Prof Cooper oversees clinical PhD students at the University of Liverpool, and remains fully active in both clinical and teaching roles. His research has been financially supported over many years by an ARUK program, on which he has been principle investigator, and by the European Science Foundation (ESF), the Association Francaise contra les Myopathies (AFM) and Myositis UK. He is also co-investigator on a pending MRC partnership. Prof Cooper has authored/co-authored over 100 peer reviewed scientific articles and reviews on muscle physiology, and more recently on myositis. He has also co-authored a number of book chapters on myositis, including in the Oxford and EULAR Textbooks of Rheumatology. He is a regular reviewer for a number of rheumatology journals, for the ARC abstract committee and for many research funding committees, including the MRC, ARUK and The Myositis Association (TMA). Prof Cooper continues to encourage junior rheumatologists to undertake research into myositis diseases mechanisms, and to train them to become expert in the delivery of care for individual myositis patients. He recently shifted to Liverpool University UK

Research Interest

immunogenetic basis for myositis, Rheumatic diseases