Rate My Professor James Cooper

Dr James Cooper is a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry at the University of Reading’s Department of Chemistry, a position he has held since September 2020. He concurrently serves as the Departmental Director for Postgraduate Studies. Cooper earned his MChem degree from the University of York in 2010 and his PhD from the University of Bristol in 2014, where his doctoral research under Professor Anthony Davis centered on transmembrane anion transport. Subsequently, he undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh with Professor Scott Cockroft, developing methods for single-molecule detection using protein nanopores. He then joined Northwestern University as a postdoctoral researcher with 2016 Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Fraser Stoddart and Professor Douglas Philp, focusing on molecular machines, systems chemistry, and self-replicating molecular systems.

The research of the Cooper Group at Reading explores systems chemistry, membrane transport, and molecular machines, with an emphasis on stimuli-responsive assemblies in lipid bilayers and the integration of replication processes within compartmentalized structures. Key areas include supramolecular chemistry, lipid membranes, conformational dynamics, stimuli-responsive macromolecules, functional materials, and mechanically interlocked molecules. Cooper has secured significant funding, including a three-year EPSRC New Investigator Award starting January 2024 for studying conformational dynamics of molecular machines in lipid membranes, a one-year Royal Society Research Grant in 2022, a two-year University of Reading Research Endowment Trust Fund grant in 2022, and a 12-month Royal Society of Chemistry Research Enablement Grant in 2021. He was awarded the 2021 Foresight Fellowship in Transmembrane Molecular Nanotechnology. His influential publications feature "A Flexible Solution to Anion Transport: Powerful Anionophores Based on a Cyclohexane Scaffold" (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2014), "Efficient, Non-Toxic Anion Transport by Synthetic Carriers in Cells and Epithelia" (Nature Chemistry, 2016), "Discrimination of Supramolecular Chirality using a Protein Nanopore" (Chemical Science, 2017), "Cyclotris(paraquat-p-phenylenes)" (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2019), and "Thermally and mechanically robust self-healing supramolecular polyurethanes featuring aliphatic amide end caps" (Polymer, 2024). Cooper has delivered public lectures on molecular machines for the Foresight Institute and chairs their monthly Molecular Machines Group seminars.