Christopher J. Potter

Principal Investigator

AKA: Chris
Birthplace:  Johannesburg, South Africa
Hometown:  North Hollywood and Woodland Hills, California, USA

cpotter [AT] jhmi.edu

Dr. Christopher J. Potter is a Professor in the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Professor in the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. His laboratory studies how mosquitoes use their sense of smell to find human hosts, and how mosquito repellents disrupt this process at the molecular, neuronal, and behavioral levels.

Dr. Potter’s lab ushered in a modern era of neurogenetics to study mosquito sensory biology by bring the Q-system into mosquitoes. His group developed the first transgenic tools for visualizing and manipulating the olfactory system of Anopheles mosquitoes, enabling direct observation of their anatomy and how individual neurons respond to repellent compounds. Current work focuses on developing “super repellents”: next-generation spatial repellent formulations optimized for Anopheles mosquitoes that can protect living spaces without relying on lethal insecticides.

Dr. Potter’s lab’s ability to visualize olfactory neurons responses in the Anopheles mosquito revealed that DEET—the world’s most widely used insect repellent—does not repel malaria-transmitting Anopheles mosquitoes through smell. Instead, DEET hides human odors by reducing their volatility, a mechanism the lab termed “masking.” This finding, published in Current Biology (Afify, 2019), helped to clarify our understanding of how synthetic repellents protect against mosquitoes and opened new avenues for repellent design.

Dr. Potter trained in the laboratory of Dr. Liqun Luo at Stanford University, where he developed the Q-system for genetic control of gene expression, now widely used across multiple model organisms. He has published in leading journals including Cell, Current Biology, Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Trends in Parasitology, and Malaria Journal.

Education:

  • Undergraduate: University of California, Berkeley, CA with Honors;  BA;   Major: Molecular Biology and Genetics 1992-199
  • Graduate: Yale University, New Haven, CT; Ph.D;  Discipline: Genetics; Thesis Advisor: Tian Xu, PhD.  Thesis: “Characterization of PTEN, Tsc1, and Tsc2: Negative Regulators of the Insulin Signaling Pathway” 1996-2002
  • Postdoctoral:  Stanford University, Stanford, CA; Discipline: Neuroscience; Advisor: Liqun Luo, PhD. 2002-2010.

Awards/Fellowship/Grants:

  • Outstanding Undergraduate Geneticist Award, UC Berkeley (1996)
  • Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellowship, 2003-2006
  • Whitehall Foundation Fellowship, 07/1/2011 – 06/30/2014
  • Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine 2014 Synergy Discovery Award, 07/1/2014 –  06/30/2015
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Grant R21NS088521, 02/01/2015 – 01/31/2017
  • Johns Hopkins School of Public Health JHMRI Pilot Grant, 07/01/2015 – 06/30/2017
  • Johns Hopkins University 2017 Discovery Award, 09/01/2017 – 08/31/2018
  • National Institute of Deafness and Communicable Diseases (NIDCD) Grant R01DC013070, 03/01/2013 – 02/28/2018
  • Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine 2018 Catalyst Award, 09/01/2017 – 08/31/2018
  • Department of Defense Grant W81XWH-17-PRMRP, 11/1/2018 – 10/31/2021
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Grant  R21AI139358, 07/01/2018 – 06/30/2020
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Grant R01Al137078, 09/17/2018 – 08/31/2023
  • Hamilton Smith Award for Innovation 2020
  • Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute Pilot Grant 2020

Research Interests:
Insect sensory biology, genetic tools and methods, olfaction, odor receptor expression, mosquitoes, Drosophila, non-model organisms

Interests outside the lab:
Family, reading or listening to audio books (science fiction/fantasy), movies, TV

Fun fact:
Enjoyed skydiving and bungee jumping in college; Identical twin (I’m the good one)