Agre, Peter Courtland, 1949–, American molecular biologist, b. Northfield, Minn., M.D. Johns Hopkins, 1974. From 1981 to 2005, Agre taught at Johns Hopkins in the departments of medicine and cell biology. He joined the Duke Univ. Medical Center in Durham, N.C., in 2005 as vice chancellor for science and technology. Agre shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Roderick MacKinnon for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes, with Agre's work focusing on water channels and McKinnon's on ion channels. Agre is credited with discovering how water is transported into and out of cells, facilitated by water-channel proteins called aquaporins. Aquaporins are part of the blood-brain barrier and are also associated with water transport in skeletal muscle, the lungs, and the kidneys.
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