Chris John Potter, PhD

Primary Academic Title

Professor of Neuroscience

Background

Centers and Institutes

• Basic Biomedical Sciences, Institute for
• Sensory Biology, Center for

X (Twitter)

https://www.twitter.com/flyknows

Videos

• #TomorrowsDiscoveries: Exploiting the Weakness of Mosquitoes | Christopher Potter, Ph.D.

Recent News Articles and Media Coverage

• Fruit Fly Pheromone Flags Great Real Estate for Starting a Family, Johns Hopkins Medicine (October 12, 2015)

  How the Brain Smells, Johns Hopkins Medicine (January 2011)

  Altering the ‘Flavor’ of Humans Could Help Fight Malaria, Johns Hopkins Medicine (October 10, 2016)

  Interview by Jessica Berman, Voice of America (October 12, 2016)

  Interview with BBC World Service, BBC (October 11, 2016)

  Interview by Luke Dormehl, Digital Trends (October 11, 2016)

  Interview by Dongeun Lee, Korean News Channel (October 18, 2016)

  Interview by Brian Mastroianni, CBS News (October 17, 2016)

  On the Record, with Sheilah Kast, WYPR Radio. What Mosquitoes Smell, and Why We Should Care, WYPR (June 27, 2017)

Research Interests

Neural circuits required for insect olfaction

Lab Website

Christopher Potter Lab - Lab Website

• The Christopher Potter Lab functions at an intersection between systems and cellular neuroscience. We are interested in how neurons and circuits function in the brain to achieve a common goal (olfaction), but we also develop, utilize and build tools (molecular and genetic) that allow us to directly alter neuronal functions in a living organism. The specific focus of my laboratory is to understand how the insect brain receives, interprets, and responds to odors. Insects rely on their sense of smell for all major life choices, from foraging to mating, from choosing where to lay eggs to avoiding predators and dangers. We are interested in understanding at the neuronal level how odors regulate these behaviors. Our long-term aim is to apply this knowledge to better control insects that pose a threat to human health. Our general approach towards achieving this goal is to develop and employ new genetic methods that enable unprecedented control over neural circuits in both the model organism Drosophila melanogaster and human malaria vector Anopheles gambiae.

Research Summary

Dr. Potter’s research focuses on how sensory information from the external environment is received, processed and interpreted by the brain. His team is interested in how neurons and circuits function in the brain to achieve a common goal (olfaction). They also develop, use and build molecular and genetic tools that allow them to directly alter neuronal functions in a living organism. They then determine how their neuronal manipulations altered the behavior of an animal.

The research in Dr. Potter’s lab is focused primarily on the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster and the mosquito Anopheles gambiae. His team developed the "Q-system," a repressible binary expression system, that allows for investigating neuronal populations. They use this system to label and manipulate small populations of neurons and assay their effects on olfactory behaviors.

More information can be found on Dr. Potter's lab page (http://potterlab.johnshopkins.edu/).

PubMed

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/christopher.potter.1/bibliography/45478070/public/?sort=date&direction=descending

Selected Publications

• Chin SG, Maguire SE, Huoviala P, Jefferis GSXE, Potter CJ (2018) Olfactory Neurons and Brain Centers Directing Oviposition Decisions in Drosophila. Cell Reports 24, 1667-1678

• Lin, C-C, Potter, CJ (2016) Editing Transgenic DNA Components by Inducible Gene Replacement in Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 203(4) 1613-1628; DOI: 10.1534/genetics.116.191783;

• Lin, C-C., Prokop-Prigge, KA, Preti, G and Potter CJ (2015) Food odors trigger Drosophila males to deposit a pheromone that guides aggregation and female oviposition decisions. eLife, Full-text Article.

• Riabinina, O, Task, D, Marr, E, Lin, C-C, Alford R, O'Brochta, DA, Potter, CJ (2016) Organization of Olfactory Centers in the Malaria Mosquito Anopheles gambiae. Nature Communications 7, 1–12.

• Riabinina, O., Luginbuhl, D., Marr, E., Liu, S., Wu, M.N., Luo, L., and Potter, C.J (2015) Improved and expanded Q-system reagents for genetic manipulations. Nature Methods, 12:219-222.

Honors

• R21, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 6/1/18
• Discovery Award, Johns Hopkins University, 9/1/17
• Pilot Fund Award, Malaria Research Institute, Bloomberg School of Public Health, 7/1/15
• R21, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 2/1/15
• Synergy Discovery Award, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 7/1/14
• RO1 Grant, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), 1/1/13
• Grant, Whitehall Foundation, 1/1/11
• Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellowship, 1/1/03
• Outstanding Undergraduate Geneticist Award, University of California, 1/1/96

Graduate Program Affiliations

• Neuroscience

  Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology

Memberships

• Society for Neuroscience,

  Member

• Association for Chemoreception Sciences,

  Member

• Genetics Society of America,

  Member

Additional Training

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2010, Biology/Neuroscience