Huntington Potter, PhD, a USF Health neuroscientist well known for his research on Alzheimer’s disease, has been elected a 2010 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Dr. Potter is a professor of molecular medicine at the USF Health and holds an endowed chair in Alzheimer’s research. He received the high-profile AAAS distinction for his contributions to the fields of genetic recombination, electroporation and neuroscience, particularly the findings that inflammation and aneuploidy (abnormal number of chromosomes) link Alzheimer’s disease and Down syndrome.

Recently, Dr. Potter and colleagues at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute discovered that a protein produced in cases of rheumatoid arthritis appears to protect against the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Huntington Potter, PhD

Dr. Potter will be one of 503 new fellows recognized for their contributions to science and technology at a forum Feb. 19 during the AAAS annual meeting in Washington, DC. He is one of three new AAAS fellows from USF to receive the award – Ashok Kumar, PhD, and Salvatore Morgera, PhD, from the College of Engineering are the other two. Paul Sanberg, PhD, DSc, professor and director of the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair at USF, has been an AAAS fellow since 1993.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world’s largest general scientific society, and publisher of several journals, including Science. For the full listing of AAS fellows, visit the organization’s web site at www.aaas.org.