Peter Davies, a researcher at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset and a pathology and neuroscience professor at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, has been named one of the recipients of the 2015 Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases, health system officials announced Tuesday.
He will receive a $50,000 prize on April 21 in Washington D.C. alongside Dr. Reisa A. Sperling, of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the prize’s other recipient, at the American Academy of Neurology’s 67th Annual Meeting.
“I am very grateful to the Potamkin family for the encouragement this award offers,” he said in a statement. “Funding the research in Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders is vitally important. The Potamkin family has continued to support this work in hopes of helping millions affected by these diseases.”
The Potamkin Prize is awarded by the American Academy of Neurology and the American Brain Foundation. The award is named after Luba Potamkin, whose 1978 dementia diagnosis was later identified as Pick’s disease.
Davies, the director of the Feinstein Institute’s Litwin-Zucker Research Center for the Study of Alzheimer’s Disease, has published more than 250 research papers based on work primarily focused on the biochemistry of Alzheimer’s disease.
He said his research has sought to understand the “disease process” of Alzheimer’s and “define points at which intervention is possible” toward the development of drugs that could slow the illness’s development or prevent it entirely.
“The problems with memory and other intellectual function that occur in Alzheimer’s disease are accompanied by the development of two abnormal structure in the brain called plaques and tangles,” Davies said. “In contrast to other work in the field, my guiding hypothesis has been that both these abnormalities derive from a disease process in the nerve cells and are consequences of disease, not the cause.”
For his research, Davies has also been the recipient of the City of New York Liberty Medal, a lifetime achievement award from the International Congress on Alzheimer’s Disease, the inaugural Metropolitan Life Foundation Prize and two MERIT awards from the National Institutes of Health.
