News Archives - 2004

Minneapolis native Dr. Peter Agre, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, will speak in a 10 a.m. Convocation on Monday, Feb. 23, at Augsburg College. Dr. Agre’s Convocation address, titled "The Aquaporin Water Channels," reprises his Nobel Prize lecture, given in Stockholm, Sweden, in December.

The Convocation, which will be held in the College's Hoversten Chapel (located at the corner of Riverside and 22nd Avenues), is open to the public at no charge.

A 1970 graduate of Augsburg College, Agre earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins and has been a member of the faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine since 1984. It was at Johns Hopkins that he began searching for answers as to how water moved through the cells within our tissues, wondering why some tissues, such as the linings of our lungs, were so much more permeable than others.

His 1988 discovery of "channels" that allow passage of water in and out of cells opened the gates for numerous related studies in biochemistry, physiology and genetics and has led to both understanding of and cures for many inherited and acquired water balance disorders, such as kidney disease.
In addition to speaking at the College, Agre will meet with faculty and students in the sciences, speak at an evening banquet, and also speak to scientists and staff members at Honeywell and 3M on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

Agre's father Courtland Agre, was a distinguished chemist in research at both DuPont and 3M and one of the "founding fathers" of Augsburg's Chemistry Department, where he taught for 17 years.

Several members of the Agre family, including Peter's mother, still reside in the Twin Cities. Peter Agre is a graduate of Roosevelt High School.