News Release: School of Medicine
Nov. 11, 2008
Nobel Laureate Peter Agre to Speak at Emory on Aquaporins and Disease
WHAT:
2008 William E. Mitch Lecture in Nephrology, Emory University School of Medicine, Renal Division
WHEN:
Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008.
5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
LECTURER:
Peter Agre, MD, professor of biological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute
In 2003, Peter Agre shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Roderick MacKinnon. Agre received the award for his discovery of aquaporins -- channels that regulate and facilitate water molecule transport through cell membranes, a process essential to all living organisms. In 2004, Agre turned his research attention toward malaria when he was awarded a pilot grant from the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.
A major part of the parasite’s lifecycle is in red blood cells. Agre has a background as a hematologist and red-blood-cell membrane biochemist, and he is currently examining whether aquaporins within the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium could be utilized to disrupt its lifecycle.
Born in Northfield, Minn., Agre attended Theodore Roosevelt High School, and in 1970 earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Augsburg College in that city. He received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1974. In 1981, after post-graduate medical training and a fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Agre returned to Hopkins, where he progressed through the ranks of the departments of medicine and cell biology. In 1993, he became a professor in the department of biological chemistry at the School of Medicine. In 2005, he joined Duke University Medical Center as vice chancellor for science and technology.
Agre was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. He holds two U.S. patents on the isolation, cloning and expression of aquaporins 1 and 5 and is the principal investigator on four current National Institutes of Health grants.
WHERE:
Emory University School of Medicine
1648 Pierce Drive, Atlanta
Room 120
COST:
Free and open to the community. For more information, call 404-727-2525.
ABOUT THE MITCH LECTURE:
The William E. Mitch Lecture in Nephrology is given annually to honor Dr. Mitch, who served as director of the Renal Division at the Emory University School of Medicine from 1987 to 2002. Mitch is recognized for his many years of dedication and service in nephrology as a physician, teacher, and scientist in the area of chronic renal failure and nutrition in renal disease. He served as President of the American Society of Nephrology in 2004. He currently is the Gordon A. Cain professor of Medicine and director of the Renal Division at Baylor College of Medicine.
The Mitch Lectureship is endowed by Amgen, a human therapeutics company in the biotechnology industry. The lectures, which focus on translational research, recognize individuals who are skilled as both scientists and clinical scholars and can present cutting-edge knowledge, new clinical techniques, and the latest in medical education to the faculty and students of Emory University School of Medicine.
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The Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University is an academic health science and service center focused on missions of teaching, research, health care and public service. Its components include schools of medicine, nursing, and public health; Yerkes National Primate Research Center; the Emory Winship Cancer Institute; and Emory Healthcare, the largest, most comprehensive health system in Georgia. The Woodruff Health Sciences Center has a $2.3 billion budget, 17,000 employees, 2,300 full-time and 1,900 affiliated faculty, 4,300 students and trainees, and a $4.9 billion economic impact on metro Atlanta.
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