Neal G. Copeland

Neal G. Copeland, PhD

Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Academic Institute
Houston Methodist


Biography

Neal Copeland received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Utah. Following postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School, he joined the staff of The Jackson Laboratory and then the National Cancer Institute-Frederick, where he was Director of the Mammalian Genetics Laboratory, the forerunner of the Mouse Cancer Genetics Program that he also directed. He moved to the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore in 2006, where he served as the Executive Director for most of his stay. In 2011 he returned to the US to serve as Director of the Houston Methodist Cancer Biology Program at Houston Methodist Research Institute. For more than 30 years he has co-headed a laboratory with Nancy Jenkins. The focus of their current research is cancer genetics. They have co-authored more than 800 papers and are among the most cited biomedical research scientists in the world today. Both have served on numerous scientific advisory and editorial boards and they have consulted for several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Both are also members of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Description of Research

Jenkins and Copeland have modeled many different types of human disease in the mouse, but the focus of their current research is exclusively cancer. They are using the Sleeping Beauty transposable element system to tag and clone genes involved in the initiation, progression and metastasis of cancer. It is hoped that a better understanding of the genetics of cancer will lead to the development of additional targeted therapies for the treatment of various forms of the disease.

Areas Of Expertise

Mouse models of cancer Insertional mutagenesis Forward genetic screens High throughput sequencing Candidate cancer gene detection
Education & Training

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
PhD, University of Utah
Publications

Sleeping Beauty transposon mutagenesis in mouse intestinal organoids identifies genes involved in tumor progression and metastasis
Iida, N, Muranaka, Y, Park, JW, Sekine, S, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA, Shiraishi, Y, Oshima, M & Takeda, H 2024, , Cancer Gene Therapy, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 527-536. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41417-023-00723-x

Ring Finger Protein 125 Is an Anti-Proliferative Tumor Suppressor in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Kodama, T, Kodama, M, Jenkins, NA, Copeland, NG, Chen, HJ & Wei, Z 2022, , Cancers, vol. 14, no. 11, 2589. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14112589

TNF receptor-related factor 3 inactivation promotes the development of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma through NF-?B-inducing kinase-mediated hepatocyte transdifferentiation
Shiode, Y, Kodama, T, Shigeno, S, Murai, K, Tanaka, S, Newberg, JY, Kondo, J, Kobayashi, S, Yamada, R, Hikita, H, Sakamori, R, Suemizu, H, Tatsumi, T, Eguchi, H, Jenkins, NA, Copeland, NG & Takehara, T 2023, , Hepatology, vol. 77, no. 2, pp. 395-410. https://doi.org/10.1002/hep.32317

Sleeping beauty transposon mutagenesis identifies genes driving the initiation and metastasis of uterine leiomyosarcoma
Kodama, M, Shimura, H, Tien, JC, Newberg, JY, Kodama, T, Wei, Z, Rangel, R, Yoshihara, K, Kuruma, A, Nakae, A, Hashimoto, K, Sawada, K, Kimura, T, Jenkins, NA & Copeland, NG 2021, , Cancer research, vol. 81, no. 21, pp. 5413-5424. https://doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-21-0356

Transposon mutagenesis identifies cooperating genetic drivers during keratinocyte transformation and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma progression
Aiderus, A, Newberg, JY, Guzman-Rojas, L, Contreras- Sandoval, AM, Meshey, AL, Jones, DJ, Amaya-Manzanares, F, Rangel, R, Ward, JM, Lee, SC, Hon-Kim Ban, K, Rogers, K, Rogers, SM, Selvanesan, L, McNoe, LA, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA, Tsai, KY, Black, MA, Mann, KM & Mann, MB 2021, , PLoS Genetics, vol. 17, no. 8, e1009094. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009094

Identification of cancer driver genes using Sleeping Beauty transposon mutagenesis
Takeda, H, Jenkins, NA & Copeland, NG 2021, , Cancer Science, vol. 112, no. 6, pp. 2089-2096. https://doi.org/10.1111/cas.14901

Ubiquitin specific peptidase 32 acts as an oncogene in epithelial ovarian cancer by deubiquitylating farnesyl-diphosphate farnesyltransferase 1
Nakae, A, Kodama, M, Okamoto, T, Tokunaga, M, Shimura, H, Hashimoto, K, Sawada, K, Kodama, T, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA & Kimura, T 2021, , Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, vol. 552, pp. 120-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2021.03.049

Promoterless transposon mutagenesis drives solid cancers via tumor suppressor inactivation
Aiderus, A, Contreras-Sandoval, AM, Meshey, AL, Newberg, JY, Ward, JM, Swing, DA, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA, Mann, KM & Mann, MB 2021, , Cancers, vol. 13, no. 2, 225, pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13020225

Prdm16 is a critical regulator of adult long-term hematopoietic stem cell quiescence
Gudmundsson, KO, Nguyen, N, Oakley, K, Han, Y, Gudmundsdottir, B, Liu, P, Tessarollo, L, Jenkins, NA, Copeland, NG & Du, Y 2020, , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 117, no. 50, pp. 31945-31953. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017626117

Promoterless transposon mutagenesis drives solid cancers via tumor suppressor inactivation
Aiderus, A, Contreras-Sandoval, AM, Meshey, AL, Newberg, JY, Ward, JM, Swing, D, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA, Mann, KM & Mann, MB 2020, , Unknown Journal. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.17.254565

Transposon mutagenesis identifies cooperating genetic drivers during keratinocyte transformation and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma progression
Aiderus, A, Newberg, JY, Guzman-Rojas, L, Contreras-Sandoval, AM, Meshey, AL, Jones, DJ, Amaya-Manzanares, F, Rangel, R, Ward, JM, Lee, SC, Ban, KHK, Rogers, K, Rogers, SM, Selvanesan, L, McNoe, LA, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA, Tsai, KY, Black, MA, Mann, KM & Mann, MB 2019, , Unknown Journal. https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.24.887968

MRTFB suppresses colorectal cancer development through regulating SPDL1 and MCAM
Kodama, T, Marian, TA, Lee, H, Kodama, M, Li, J, Parmacek, MS, Jenkins, NA, Copeland, NG & Wei, Z 2019, , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910413116

CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene knockout in intestinal tumor organoids provides functional validation for colorectal cancer driver genes
Takeda, H, Kataoka, S, Nakayama, M, Ali, MAE, Oshima, H, Yamamoto, D, Park, JW, Takegami, Y, An, T, Jenkins, NA, Copeland, NG & Oshima, M 2019, , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 116, no. 31, pp. 15635-15644. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1904714116

Author Correction: A recellularized human colon model identifies cancer driver genes (Nature Biotechnology, (2016), 34, 8, (845-851), 10.1038/nbt.3586)
Chen, HJ, Wei, Z, Sun, J, Bhattacharya, A, Savage, DJ, Serda, R, Mackeyev, Y, Curley, SA, Bu, P, Wang, L, Chen, S, Cohen-Gould, L, Huang, E, Shen, X, Lipkin, SM, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA & Shuler, ML 2019, , Nature Biotechnology, vol. 37, no. 7, pp. 820. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0163-6

The Roles of Initiating Truncal Mutations in Human Cancers: The Order of Mutations and Tumor Cell Type Matters
Levine, AJ, Jenkins, NA & Copeland, NG 2019, , Cancer Cell, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 10-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2018.11.009

Molecular profiling of nonalcoholic fatty liver diseaseassociated hepatocellular carcinoma using SB transposon mutagenesis
Kodama, T, Yi, J, Newberg, JY, Tien, JC, Wu, H, Finegold, MJ, Kodama, M, Wei, Z, Tamura, T, Takehara, T, Johnson, RL, Jenkins, NA & Copeland, NG 2018, , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 115, no. 44, pp. E10417-E10426. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1808968115

Creation of a myosin Va-TAP-tagged mouse and identification of potential myosin Va-interacting proteins in the cerebellum
Alexander, CJ, Wagner, W, Copeland, NG, Jenkins, NA & Hammer, JA 2018, , Cytoskeleton, vol. 75, no. 9, pp. 395-409. https://doi.org/10.1002/cm.21474

SB driver analysis: A sleeping beauty cancer driver analysis framework for identifying and prioritizing experimentally actionable oncogenes and tumor suppressors
Newberg, JY, Black, MA, Jenkins, NA, Copeland, NG, Mann, KM & Mann, MB 2018, , Nucleic Acids Research, vol. 46, no. 16, e94. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gky450

Stability and function of hippocampal mossy fiber synapses depend on Bcl11b/Ctip2
De Bruyckere, E, Simon, R, Nestel, S, Heimrich, B, Kätzel, D, Egorov, AV, Liu, P, Jenkins, NA, Copeland, NG, Schwegler, H, Draguhn, A & Britsch, S 2018, , Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, vol. 11, 103, pp. 103. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2018.00103

SBCDDB: Sleeping Beauty Cancer Driver Database for gene discovery in mouse models of human cancers
Newberg, JY, Mann, KM, Mann, MB, Jenkins, NA & Copeland, NG 2018, , Nucleic Acids Research, vol. 46, no. D1, pp. D1011-D1017. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkx956