Nobel Laureate gives public lecture in Sydney

Nobel laureate Professor Peter Agre will deliver a public lecture, hosted by Brain Sciences UNSW, on his life and career in science on 11 July 2007. Professor Agre is an eminent medical doctor and molecular biologist from Minnesota, USA. He was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003 for his discovery of special water-channel proteins known as aquaporins, which regulate and facilitate water molecule transport through cell membranes, an essential process in all living organisms.

Aquaporins are involved in a number of diseases involving water movement including kidney disease. They are also involved in oedema formation (fluid build up in organs) after brain trauma and ischaemia (a restriction in blood supply). Agre and his colleagues isolated the first aquaporin in red blood cells and renal tubules in the early 1990s, and have since found aquaporins to be a large family of proteins that exist in plants and bacteria, as well as in animals. 

Currently Vice Chancellor of Science and Technology at Duke University in Minnesota, USA, Professor Agre is also the James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology at the Duke University Medical Center, Minnesota.

During Peter Agre’s visit to Australia, he will also deliver the opening plenary lecture at the World Congress of Neuroscience in Melbourne. 

Supported by the NSW Office for Science and Medical Research, Professor Agre's public lecture on “My Life in Science”, will take place on Wednesday 11 July at the Theatrette, NSW Parliament House, Macquarie Street, Sydney, from 6.00 to 7:30pm.  If you are interested in attending the lecture, please contact Christine Conolly via email or by telephone on 02 9338 6782.