Peter Agre
Peter Agre
Peter Agre /ˈɑːɡriː/is an American physician, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, and molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistryfor his discovery of aquaporins. Aquaporins are water-channel proteins that move water molecules through the cell membrane. In 2009, Agre was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth30 January 1949
CityNorthfield, MN
CountryUnited States of America
My wife and I have four children, and none of them are in lab science, so clearly I returned home at night and presented a fairly unattractive example of a scientific life.
Following my junior year in high school, I went on a camping trip through Russia in a group led by Horst Momber, a young language teacher from Roosevelt.
Johns Hopkins introduced me to two defining events in my life: commitment to biomedical research and meeting my future wife, Mary.
Our lab had always refrained from keeping our studies secret.
My goal was to develop into an independent research scientist studying clinical problems at the laboratory bench, but I felt that postgraduate residency training in internal medicine was necessary.
It is a remarkable honor to receive a Nobel Prize, because it not only recognizes discoveries, but also their usefulness to the advancement of fundamental science.
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, a bill opening one half million square miles of territory in the western United States for settlement.
Every cell in our body is primarily water. But the water doesn't just sit in the cell, it moves through it in a very organized way. The process occurs rapidly in tissues that have these aquaporins or water channels.
We always had lutefisk for Christmas dinner, after which Dad read from the Norwegian Bible.
My brother Jim and I spent many wonderful summers working on dairy farms in Wisconsin owned by Mom's cousins, and as members of our local Boy Scout troop.
The Department of Cell Biology at Johns Hopkins was founded and directed by Tom Pollard, an engaging young scientist with remarkable energy and enthusiasm.
The long, cold Minnesota winters instilled in me a fascination for exotic far off places; I aspired toward a career in tropical diseases and world health problems.
Our single greatest defense against scientific ignorance is education, and early in the life of every scientist, the child's first interest was sparked by a teacher.
The need for general scientific understanding by the public has never been larger, and the penalty for scientific illiteracy never harsher... Lack of scientific fundamentals causes people to make foolish decisions about issues such as the toxicity of chemicals, the efficacy of medicines, the changes in the global climate.