A conversation with Peter Agre.

After a 20-year focus on the water channel aquaporin (work for which he shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), Peter Agre has turned his attention to malaria. He currently serves as Director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. The full interview, wherein Agre (Figure 1) displays his witty sense of humor, including vignettes related to running for Senate, dancing to the Buena Vista Social Club, and his desire to be known as the Victor Borge of science can be seen on the JCI website at http://www.jci.org/kiosk/cgm. JCI: Can tell me a little bit about what you were like as a kid? Agre: I was the oldest son of six children. My mother was a farm girl and never went to college; Dad was a college professor. Dad was all science and math, and mother was much more into the humanities, reading the Bible and the classics. My mother is very religious and was very concerned that we use our talents for the well-being of others less fortunate. We lived in Northfield, Minnesota, just down the hill from St. Olaf College. My friends and I were like the little Norwegian Spanky and Alfalfas, swarming the college, climbing trees, going down the hills in our toboggans. It was a wonderful childhood. JCI: Did your father’s position as a chemistry professor cultivate an early interest in science? Agre: He definitely was a strong influence, and I always felt totally intimidated by Dad in his ability to do logarithms in his head. He was very gifted in some ways. He was also very obstinate. You might have heard the term stubborn Norwegian, often wrong but never in doubt. Dad was like that. JCI: Most might not know that you actually finished high school in night school while you were also studying Russian and driving the trucks for the evening shift for a company that was making dummy land mines and military equipment. Agre: I would write this off as youthful rebellion. When I was 17, I spent a summer traveling through Russia and it was an extremely enlightening experience, and I stopped listening to some of the directions at home with the thought that there are bigger things out there. But working in a factory making war materials and going to night school was not a lot of fun. In the end, I faced the reality that I was not going to lead some glorious Raskolnikoff revolutionary experience. I enrolled at Augsburg College, where Dad taught. I got a good background in science, with the idea I would go to medical school. I remember distinctly applying for medical school and kind of being out of my league. The interview was a lot less pleasant than this interview. The Dean for Admissions was a very nice man, but he had some very specific questions. After those, he asked, “Do you have any questions for me?” I didn’t come prepared with questions, but I thought for a moment and I recalled that one of the requirements was to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which is the gold standard of psychological profiles. I thought for a moment and I said, “What did you learn about me from the MMPI?” He looked into my file, and said, “These results indicate that you lie more than average.” He looked down with a little smile on his face and said, “But you lie less than the average medical student.” So I don’t know what that means. Everything I’m telling you is the truth. Trust me. JCI: I’ll take that under advisement. You took another rather transformative trip around the world before medical school. Agre: I’d really been interested in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East. I hitchhiked all around Japan for a month and a half, and Taiwan and Hong Kong, and then traveled around Southeast Asia, rented a motorcycle in the hills in Thailand, explored Cambodia. I made an unexpected bivouac to Vietnam during the Parrot’s Beak invasion, in May 1970. I then made my way to India. Eventually I crossed into Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Europe, and got back in time to start medical school. I learned a lot on that trip . . . and my pre-med focus sort of died. It seemed like gutting it out for the next exam was not the highest priority and reinforced my interest in Third World diseases. I joined the wonderful laboratory of Pedro Cuatrecasas, who was investigating the toxin that causes cholera. But I have to say, if you work on diarrheal diseases, don’t expect it to enhance your social life. I remember going to a mixer at Goucher College and meeting an attractive young lady who seemed to be interested in me. We were talking, and she asked me, “What kind of medical specialty are you interested in?” I should have said neurosurgery or radiology. But I’m from Minnesota; I told her the truth. I said, “I’m interested in diarrheal diseases,” and that was the end of that. I subsequently met my future wife who grew up in a farm and worked in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins and was not squeamish, although she set some limits, saying, “If you are going to work on diarrheal diseases, don’t bring your work home at night.” JCI: You mentioned getting your first taste of research, but then you did finish your full clinical training. Agre: I always had some trepidation about whether I had the intellectual capacity, drive, and organizational skills to survive as a basic scientist. I was truly interested in clinical medicine and did a residency at Case Western Reserve. And I really deeply cared for the patients. I used to stop and see patients on my way home from the hospital on my bicycle in Cleveland. It was not insincere. But I always felt that the diseases and Figure 1. Peter Agre on April 26, 2014. Image credit: Karen Guth.