George Cooper

Affiliation: NASA Ames Research Center (ARC)

Branch: Exobiology Branch (STX)

Email: george.cooper@nasa.gov

Professional Biography

Principal Investigator, 1998-Present:

NASA Ames Research Center-Mountain View, California. Research: molecular and stable isotope analysis of meteoritic organic compounds to determine their cosmochemical origins.

Principal Investigator, 1995-1998: SETI Institute – Mountain View, California

Education

Ph.D., Chemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

B.S., Chemistry, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.

Select Publications

-Rios AC, Bera P, Moreno J, Cooper G (2020) The Pyruvate Aldol Condensation Product: A Metabolite that Escaped Synthetic Preparation for Over a Century. Accepted for publ.

-Milshteyn D, Cooper G, Deamer D (2019) Chemiosmotic energy for primitive cellular life: Proton gradients are generated across lipid membranes by redox reactions coupled to meteoritic quinones. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1-12.

-Nuevo M, Cooper G, Sandford SA (2018). Deoxyribose and deoxysugar derivatives from photoprocessed astrophysical ice analogues and comparison to meteorites. Nature communications, 9(1), 5276.

-Cooper G, Rios A, Nuevo M (2018) Monosaccharides and Their Derivatives in Carbonaceous Meteorites: A Scenario for Their Synthesis and Onset of Enantiomeric Excesses. Life, 8(3), 36.

-Wilhelm MB, Davila A F, Parenteau MN, Jahnke L, Abate M, Cooper G, et al. (2018) Constraints on the Metabolic Activity of Microorganisms in Atacama Surface Soils Inferred from Refractory Biomarkers: Implications for Martian Habitability and Biomarker Detection. Astrobiology, 18(7), 955-966.

-Cooper G, Rios A.C.  (2016) Enantiomer excesses of rare and common sugar derivatives in carbonaceous meteorites. P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 113, E3322-E3331. doi:10.1073/pnas.1603030113

-Cooper G, Horz F, Spees A, Chang S (2014) Highly stable meteoritic organic compounds as markers of asteroidal delivery. Earth. Planet. Sci. Lett. 385, 206-215.  DOI:  10.1016/j.epsl.2013.10.021

-Jenniskens P, et al. (2012) Radar-enabled recovery of the Sutter’s Mill meteorite, a carbonaceous chondrite regolith breccia. Science 338, 1583-1587.

-Tanaka Z, Perry M, Cooper G, Tang S, McKay CP, Chen B (2012) NIR Raman spectroscopy of precambrian carbonate stromatolites with post-depositional organic inclusions. Appl. Spectrosc. 66, 911-916.

-Cooper G, Reed C, Nguyen D, Carter M, Wang Y (2011) Detection and formation scenario of citric acid, pyruvic acid, and other possible metabolism precursors in carbonaceous meteorites. P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 14015-14020.

-Cooper G, Sant M, Asiyo C (2009) Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry resolution of sugar acid enantiomers on a permethylated β-cyclodextrin stationary phase. J. Chromatogr. A 1216, 6838–6843.

-Brownlee D, et al. (2006) Comet 81P/Wild 2 under a microscope. Science 314, 1711-1716.

-Pizzarello S, Cooper GW, Flynn GJ (2006) The nature and distribution of the organic material in carbonaceous chondrites and interplanetary dust particles in meteorites and the early Solar system II. D. Lauretta, L. A. Leshin, and H. Y. McSween Jr., Eds. University of Arizona Press.

-Sandford SA, et al. (2006) Organics captured from comet 81P/Wild 2 by the Stardust spacecraft. Science 314, 1720-1724.

-Lerner NR, Cooper GW (2005) Iminodicarboxylic acids in the Murchison meteorite: evidence of Strecker reactions. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 69, 2901-2906.

-Bernstein MP, Dworkin JP, Sandford SA, Cooper GW, Allamandola LJ (2002) Racemic amino acids from the ultraviolet photolysis of interstellar ice analogues. Nature 416, 401-403.

-Cooper G, Kimmich N, Belisle W, Sarinana J, Brabham K, Garrel L (2001) Carbonaceous meteorites as a source of sugar-related organic compounds for the early Earth. Nature 414, 879-883.

-Pizzarello S, Hang Y, Becker L, Poreda RJ, Nieman RA, Cooper GW, Williams M (2001) The organic content of the Tagish Lake meteorite, a new pathway in prebiotic chemical evolution. Science 293, 2236-2239.

-Ehrenfreund P, Glavin D, Botta O, Cooper G, Bada J (2001) Extraterrestrial amino acids in Orgueil and Ivuna: tracing the parent body of CI type carbonaceous chondrites. P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 2138-2141.

-Cooper GW, Thiemens MH, Jackson T, Chang S (1997) Sulfur and hydrogen isotope anomalies in meteoritic sulfonic acids. Science 277, 1072-1074.

-Cooper GW, Onwo WM, Cronin JR (1992) Alkyl phosphonic acids and sulfonic acids in the Murchison meteorite, Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 56, 4109-4115.