Nobel Prize winner recalls youth, chemistry research

The Nobel laureate had the crowd in stitches.

The 150 people who showed up at the Gross Chemistry building Friday to hear Dr. Peter Agre, vice chancellor for science and technology at Duke University Medical Center, may not have expected the co-discoverer of aquaporins-channels in cell membranes that allow the passage of water-to pepper his speech with self-deprecating jokes told in a Minnesota deadpan.

The winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Chemistry attributed his professional success to the intelligence of his colleagues and his inclination to consult "a lot of smart people" when working on a problem.

"Ordinary people get struck by lightning, they get kicked to death by hogs-in North Carolina anyway-and some of them win Nobel Prizes," he said. "I think to make more of it than that is probably a mistake."

The speech, entitled "From Lake Wobegon to Stockholm: Personal Reflections," combined elements of a biochemistry lecture with anecdotes from Agre's medical career and childhood in Northfield, Minn.

Agre spent his formative years in Northfield, a place he described as "an idyllic village set up there in the farmland." His father Courtland Agre was a professor of chemistry at St. Olaf College, and the family lived in a neighborhood Agre said was entirely Norwegian. "Every year the king of Norway would come to visit," he said. "He would be motored up to the college in the back of the only Cadillac in town, owned by Mr. Sven Miller, the plumber."

Agre spent a short time in Berkeley, Calif., while his father Courtland was a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley. "Leaving Northfield for Berkeley was a little bit like leaving Lake Wobegon for Sodom and Gomorrah," he said.

While teaching in California, Agre's father befriended a number of well-known chemists, including Nobel laureates Glenn Seaborg and Linus Pauling.

Finding research more interesting than hospital practice, Agre moved to Chapel Hill, where he worked at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wellcome Labs. Agre worked closely with Duke scientists during his years in the Triangle.

"I've always loved Duke," Agre said. "I've maintained close ties to my friends and colleagues here." His daughter Claire graduated from the University in 2002.

Agre returned to Baltimore and the cell biology department at JHU after three years in Chapel Hill. It was there, while trying to isolate the blood antigen Rh, he made what he calls a "serendipitous observation."

Agre and his team inadvertently found an abundant protein known as 28 kDa. The unknown protein had a concentration of 200,000 per cell. "Imagine driving in western North Carolina and finding a city of 200,000 that wasn't on the map," Agre said.

He was perplexed by the protein, which had no clear function within the cell. Only when a friend suggested that Agre may have discovered the long-sought key to membrane water permeability did he realize the potential significance of his mystery protein.

Spinal fluid, saliva, and bile "are all examples of water crossing biological barriers," Agre said. "How the fluids are orchestrated was a long-standing question."

His protein was the answer. The discovery of aquaporins changed scientists' understanding of how water travels through cell membranes in all forms of life.

Agre made light of his role in the discovery, his subsequent fame and his Nobel Prize. "After I won, the [JHU] president came right over," Agre said. "I had no idea we were such good friends!"