UCSD Neuroscientist Wins $100,000 Prize for Alzheimer’s Work

Dr. Robert D. Terry, a neuroscientist at UC San Diego who is a pioneer in the research of Alzheimer’s disease, has been awarded a $100,000 prize for his work on the disabling ailment, it was announced Wednesday.

Terry, a resident of Poway and a faculty member of the UC San Diego School of Medicine since July, 1984, was named the first recipient of the Potamkin Prize for Alzheimer’s Disease Research.

The $100,000 award, administered by the American Academy of Neurology, an organization of clinical and academic neurologists, was announced Wednesday at a press conference in New York City.

Terry, 64, who was in New York for the announcement, has been at the forefront of Alzheimer’s research for almost three decades, the academy said. Terry is said to have mapped out and expanded the boundaries of such research, and is also responsible for having trained many of today’s top researchers, according to an academy statement. Among other things, Terry is credited with the first scientific descriptions of brain cell changes associated with the disease.

Terry is one of five investigators engaged in a five-year study of Alzheimer’s at UC San Diego.

Terry began his research in the 1960s, at a time when few people had heard of the disease, which was then considered uncommon. Sufferers were generally regarded as senile.

“In 1961, there were one or two of us in this country, and two in England, doing this type of research,” Terry said in a statement.

Today, by contrast, hundreds of investigators nationwide are looking into the disease, which afflicts an estimated 2.5 million people in the United States and is the fourth leading killer of adults nationwide. There is no known cure.

“Dr. Terry’s ground-breaking studies in the early 1960s opened up a vast arena of contemporary research,” said Dr. Seymour Kety, senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health.

The disease’s progressive effects range from minor forgetfulness to severe impairment of memory and other intellectual functions. Eventually, victims may find themselves unable to perform common tasks, and may need assistance while eating, dressing, taking medication and using the bathroom.

“Only recently have we determined that senility is not ‘normal’ for the elderly,” Terry said. “We have much more to learn about the mechanisms of the aging brain.”

The Potamkin Prize was made possible through the philanthropy of Victor Potamkin, the automobile dealer, and his sons, Robert and Alan. The family has been active in Alzheimer’s issues since Luba Potamkin, wife of Victor and mother of the two Potamkin sons, was diagnosed as having the disease a dozen years ago. The prize is designed to encourage research into Alzheimer’s disease.

Terry will receive the award at the American Academy of Neurology’s 19th annual meeting, to be held April 19 in Cincinnati. He was selected by a six-member committee of noted scientists, including two Nobel laureates, the academy said.

Terry, a native of Hartford, Conn., is a professor in the departments of neurosciences and pathology at UC San Diego. Before coming to California in 1984, Terry was a faculty member at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York for 25 years. A World War II veteran, he is a graduate of Williams College and Albany Medical College, and has been a visiting professor at the Institute of Neurosciences at the National Hospital in London. He has also written several books.