Nobel Prize-winning chemist recounts accidental discovery

When Agre and his research team noticed the protein they would later name aquaporin while conducting an investigation of blood proteins, they thought it was a contaminant. Nearly two decades later, Agre explained that scientists have discovered critical implications of the protein for treating malaria and other diseases while giving the 2010 Adel Mahmoud Lecture in Global Health, “Aquaporin Water Channels: From Atomic Structure to Malaria.”

Agre gained fame in 1992 when he and his colleagues classified the previously unknown family of proteins, which they determined were instrumental in ensuring the transport of water across cell membranes.

“There’s a long-standing controversy in physiology about how water crosses cell membranes,” Agre said. “For more than a century there have been arguments.” Aquaporin turned out to be, as Agre called it, “the long-sought water channel.”

Ironically, as Agre was quick to point out, his discovery of aquaporin was incidental to his initial research goal. While studying Rh antigens, which are protein markers on the surface of blood cells, Agre and his lab noticed a molecule — initially dismissed as a contaminant — which was “enormously abundant in the membranes of cells,” he said.

“We had some clues that this could be an important thing to study, but we didn’t have a clue as to what its function was,” Agre said. “We decided to bend the rules a little bit. We were funded by the National Institutes of Health to study Rh, but in our part-time efforts we studied this contaminating molecule. Maybe a wiser, more focused scientist wouldn’t have done that, but we are who we are.”

Agre’s landmark discovery of aquaporin has launched new research in a variety of medical fields, including renal vascular diseases, loss of vision, brain injury and malaria, among others.

“[Agre] combines the scientific background with the interest and commitment to human health,” molecular biology professor Adel Mahmoud said in an interview after the lecture. He added that he admired how Agre has “used his public persona to ... stand up for the issues of science and society.”

Since 2008, Agre has served as director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Insitute at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. During his talk, Agre stressed that one million people worldwide die each year from malaria, noting that research on aquaporin may provide new avenues for treatment.

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Several students in attendance said they enjoyed how Agre presented on both the scientific and policy implications of his discovery.

Santhosh Balasubramanian ’13 said the talk was “less scientific than I had expected.”

The lecture was “interesting because the style of communication was very clear,” Tejas Sathe ’13 said.

In discussing his reception of the Nobel Prize seven years ago, Agre said that the prize “really doesn’t represent as much as you might think to the individual ... We’re footnotes in history, but the science is there.”