Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry
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An MD&DI September 1999 Column
SNAPSHOT
Heavenly Bodies
Scientist and Academic Finds Inspiration in Human Condition
Kassandra S. Kania
David Cooper remembers every detail of the 10th-grade chemistry class that changed his life. He recalls his classmate winking mischievously and raising his hand to ask the chemistry teacher what he thought heaven was like. The man, a member of the Methodist church and a Sunday school teacher who often preached religion during class, removed his glasses and responded that he expected the class might think he envisioned pearly gates and angels on high, but to him heaven would be sitting on an electron and riding around the nucleus of an atom so that he could truly understand the primordial forces of nature. "I still get a little choked up today," says Cooper, recalling the incident. "He really stimulated me to think about science and the fact that there are basic truths here that I wanted to be involved in."
Today, Cooper is vice president of research and chief scientific officer at diaDexus (Santa Clara, CA), a company dedicated to the discovery and commercialization of molecular diagnostic products, with a focus on the development of tests for improved screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of cancer and infectious diseases. "By sequencing, analysis, and recognition of all the genes in the human genome, the company hopes to uncover new diagnostic markers that will be more predictive of outcome, more useful for early diagnosis, and also more closely tied to therapeutic approaches," says Cooper.
As he explains, the diagnostic industry's concentration up to this point has been on commodity-based testing, which all kinds of laboratories are able to perform, using markers that were in the public domain. Cooper believes that this approach will give way to patent-protected, molecular-based diagnostics: "If we are able to patent these genes and the disease association, we can tie this to the outcome of the patient as a prognostic indicator or something that will guide therapy. In this way, we can save more lives by detecting disease and starting therapy early."
Cooper has spent most of his life as an academic. He received his PhD in chemistry from Florida State University (Tallahassee) and his MD from the University of Florida (Gainesville). In 1978, he was recruited by Duke University's department of pathology as assistant director of the transfusion service. His work at Duke, and later at the University of Pittsburgh, led to novel gene therapeutic interventions for brain and breast cancers that exploit tumor-specific alternative splicing to target tumor cells.
In 1997, Cooper left his academic career to gain experience in both the corporate biotechnology and laboratory industries. He served as vice president and chief science officer of the Nichols Institute Reference Laboratory for Quest Diagnostics (San Juan Capistrano, CA) before joining diaDexus. "The strength of [diaDexus] lies in cancer discovery," Cooper says. "It's important for a small company to focus. I'm a person who has a lot of interests, but in a business like this, you should concentrate on doing one thing extraordinarily well."
One of Cooper's many interests is the journal Molecular Diagnosis, which he founded while serving as treasurer and scientific program committee chair for the molecular pathology division of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. "I started this journal because the technologies in molecular biology had become very sophisticated, and I believed that these molecular techniques that were applied in the laboratory would improve patient care and result in overall healthcare savings."
But more importantly, he started the journal so that he could write humanist editorials and share the insights and relationships that have given his career its value. In the journal's December 1998 editorial, Cooper writes, "A large part of my interest in accepting the job of editor in chief of Molecular Diagnosis was my belief in scientists as people with emotions, convictions, and something worth saying about the human condition, outside the ropes of scientific inquiry." Much of Cooper's inspiration and desire to study science and medicine comes from his brother, Mark, who has cerebral palsy, but nonetheless has learned to live self-sufficiently. This goal of self-liberation is part of Cooper's vision for the future. "I see us moving our diagnostics and therapeutics toward personal empowerment. One of the ways we can make diagnostics more powerful is to combine the results of several tests—called multianalyte tests—into one. This helps us assess the more complex illnesses so we know how to treat them effectively. We're already preparing for that day—thinking about the steps we need to take to get there. Who are we going to partner with? How do we want to get involved at the point of care? One of the things I feel good about is being able to give people more information to help them make decisions about their healthcare."
Kassandra S. Kania is associate editor of MD&DI.
