Faculty

John D Potter

Professor Emeritus, Epidemiology


Education

MBBS Medicine, University of Queensland (Australia), 1971
PhD Epidemiology, University of Queensland (Australia), 1984

Contact


Bio

John D Potter is Chief Science Advisor, New Zealand (NZ) Ministry of Health, as well as: Professor at CPHR, Massey University, Wellington, NZ; Adjunct Professor at University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ; and Senior Advisor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) and Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at the University of Washington,

After 5 years of clinical medicine, Potter worked at CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition, Adelaide (1977-1986), completing his PhD and beginning his close partnership with Tony McMichael. Then, in the US, he held increasingly senior posts at the Universities of Minnesota and Washington and FHCRC (including as Director of its Division of Public Health Sciences).

Potter chaired the international panel that produced Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective (1997). He is founding co-chair of the Asia Cohort Consortium, a collaborative cohort study across Asia of 1.1 million people.

International awards include: India’s Gopalan Oration Gold Medal for nutrition science (1996); American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) DeWitt Goodman Lectureship for international leadership in research in nutrition, cancer, and cancer prevention (2000); the US National Cancer Institute Annual Advances in Cancer Prevention Award (2005); AACR-American Cancer Society Award for Research Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention (2009); and the 2012 Medal of Honour of IARC.

Research Areas

Research Interests

Cancer biology, epidemiology, early detection, and prevention; nutrition; planetary health

Recent Publications (PubMed)

Subsequent primary cancer risks for non-hereditary colorectal cancer survivors.
(2026 Feb)
EClinicalMedicine 92(): 103716
Aung YK, Jenkins MA, Baxter NN, Potter JD, Schmit SL, Samadder JJ, Newcomb PA, Buchanan DD, Win AK
Associations of epidemiologic risk factors with Fusobacterium nucleatum and bacterial alpha diversity in the colorectal tumor-associated microbiota.
(2026 Feb 10)
Cancer Causes Control 37(3): 45
Hill CM, Malen RC, Reedy AM, Kahsai O, Curtis K, Ma N, Randolph TW, Ma J, Thomas CE, Ogino S, Potter JD, Buchanan DD, Newcomb PA, Hullar MAJ, Phipps AI
Genetic risk factors modulate the association between physical activity and colorectal cancer.
(2026 Feb 5)
BMC Med
Peoples AR, Obón-Santacana M, Kim AE, Kawaguchi ES, Fu Y, Qu C, Moratalla-Navarro F, Morrison J, Lin Y, Arndt V, Berndt SI, Bien SA, Bishop DT, Bouras E, Brenner H, Buchanan DD, Campbell PT, Chan AT, Chang-Claude J, Conti DV, Corley DA, Devall MA, Dimou N, Drew DA, Gruber SB, Gunter MJ, Harlid S, Harrison TA, Hoffmeister M, Hsu L, Huyghe JR, Keku TO, Kundaje A, Lewinger JP, Li L, Lynch BM, Le Marchand L, Martín V, Murphy N, Newton CC, Ogino S, Hardikar S, Ose J, Pai RK, Palmer JR, Papadimitriou N, Pardamean B, Pellatt AJ, Pinchev M, Platz EA, Potter JD, Rennert G, Ruiz-Narvaez EA, Sakoda LC, Schoen RE, Shcherbina A, Stern MC, Su YR, Thomas CE, Tian Y, Tsilidis KK, Um CY, van Duijnhoven FJB, Van Guelpen B, Visvanathan K, Wang J, White E, Wolk A, Woods MO, Wu AH, Ulrich CM, Peters U, Gauderman WJ, Moreno V
Nurse endoscopists: a rational response to rising rates of young-onset colorectal cancer in Aotearoa New Zealand.
(2025 Oct 24)
N Z Med J 138(162): 76-86
Bagshaw P, Potter JD, Griffiths N, Hornblow A, Cox B, Gower K
The problem with ten-year private healthcare contracts.
(2025 Sep 19)
N Z Med J 138(1622): 119-120
Bagshaw P, Potter JD, Bagshaw S
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