This year’s Potamkin awardees have also won the three most recent MetLife Awards—Zlokovic in 2007, Vassar in 2008, and Wolfe this year.

Vassar, of Northwestern University in Chicago, is well known in the AD field for his work unraveling mechanisms behind the amyloid precursor protein (APP)-cleaving enzyme BACE1, and its connections with AD (see, e.g., O’Connor et al., 2008 and ARF related news story; Ma et al., 2007 and ARF related news story). Vassar served on the ARF Scientific Advisory Board in 2005 and has contributed generously to the Alzforum community over the years.

Wolfe, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, is widely credited for advancing the field’s understanding of the other APP-clipping enzyme, γ-secretase (see, e.g., Mowrer and Wolfe, 2008 and ARF related news story; Kukar et al., 2008 and ARF related news story; Sato et al., 2007 and ARF related news story). Wolfe has offered comments for more than a dozen studies covered on Alzforum and participated in our most recent Webinar Discussion.

Research led by Zlokovic, University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, has brought greater insight into mechanisms of Aβ clearance, especially at the intersection between the vascular system and neurodegenerative disease (see, e.g., Bell et al., 2009 and ARF related news story; Sagare et al., 2007 and ARF related news story; Zhong et al., 2008 and ARF related news story). In 2003, Zlokovic led an ARF live discussion based in part on his group’s data showing that RAGE (receptor for advanced glycation end products) in brain endothelium mediates antibody transport across the blood-brain barrier (Deane et al., 2003).

Hearty congratulations to this year’s awardees!—Esther Landhuis.