Water
molecules worm their way through the narrow channel
made of "aquaporins" in the cell membrane.
Peter Agre discovered the elusive water channel that biologists
had long sought when he was just 39. Trained as a physician,
Agre was then a hematologist—a blood specialist—seeing
patients. He was researching a particular protein in blood
when he happened upon another much smaller protein, one that
no one had ever seen before but which turned out to be astonishingly
abundant. He likens the discovery to “coming into a town
of about 200,000 in Western Maryland that wasn’t on the
map.”
No one knew its function, but at the suggestion of a former
mentor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
Agre began to study whether the mysterious protein transported
water in and out of cells. Most scientists believed then
that water molecules moved across cell membranes simply
by the process of diffusion.
In 1991, Agre and colleagues tested the new hypothesis
by adding the gene that produced the protein and placing
frogs eggs in fresh water. The eggs quickly swelled and
burst, proving that the protein was indeed a cellular pore
that conveyed water molecules into the cells. In April 1992,
the findings appeared in Science.
Now 11 of these proteins, or “aquaporins,” have
been characterized in humans, and in labs around the world,
scientists are researching treatments based on Agre’s
work. The studies are illuminating how aquaporins malfunction
in certain diseases, such as those of the heart, kidneys
and other organs.
Characteristically, Agre has attributed his discovery to
sheer serendipity. His colleagues insist that while an element
of chance was involved, elucidating the protein’s function
was the result of rigorous work and study.
“It highlights that the prepared mind can turn serendipity,
as in the case of discovery of water channels, into a paradigm-breaking
moment,” said Chi Dang, vice dean for research. “It
was a job superbly done, with great depth, without fanfare.”
Power Prizes
Established in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred
Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896, the Nobel
Prizes first were awarded in 1901. Since then, 661 have
been given; 42 percent of the winners have been Americans.
No more than three winners can share a prize. Because it
is difficult to single out researchers, the scientific committees
often give the prizes to the maximum number.
Nobel made few stipulations, other than to say that the
chemistry prize should go to those who “shall have
conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” and “shall
have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement.”
In addition to the chemistry prize, there are prizes in
literature, physics, medicine or physiology, and peace.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was established
separately in 1968 and is grouped with the other awards.
Peter Agre’s Nobel Prize is the first awarded to a
member of the full-time Hopkins faculty since Hamilton Smith
and Daniel Nathans won the 1978 prize for medicine for discoveries
in genetics. (Riccardo Giaconni had a research affiliation
with Hopkins when he won the physics prize last year).
Agre shares the prize in chemistry with Roderick MacKinnon,
of Rockefeller University in New York City, who was honored
for his studies on the structure of channels that transport
charged particles called ions through cell walls. The two
will split $1.3 million in prize money. The prizes will
be awarded in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the
death of their founder.
