- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Agre shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering aquaporins, a family of water-channel proteins found throughout nature that underlie numerous physiological processes and clinical disorders. He is deeply involved in multiple global issues, and is the current director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, which conducts research in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
From 2005-2008, Agre chaired the Committee on Human Rights of the National Academy of Sciences and led efforts on behalf of imprisoned scientists, engineers, and health professionals worldwide. He has also participated in diplomatic visits and meetings with leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar, and Iran.
A past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Agre is an ambassador for science. He has given numerous lectures and presentations, and has even appeared on the TV program The Colbert Report.
“We are honored to have Dr. Peter Agre as our keynote speaker,” said UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal, co-chair of ICE 2016. “This will be a historic event with more than 6,000 attendees, and we look forward to hearing about Dr. Agre's efforts to control malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that kills more than 600,000 people each year.”
“Controlling malaria is definitely one of the grand challenges in the field of entomology,” said ICE 2016 co-chair Alvin Simmons. “Dr. Agre's perspectives as a scientist and as a communicator will be well appreciated by the thousands of international insect scientists and others who will be in attendance. ICE 2016 will be a student-friendly event, and Dr. Agre is approachable for one-on-one conversations with students.”
ICE 2016 will be the largest gathering of entomologists in history, as it will be co-located with the annual meetings of the Entomological Society of America and the Entomological Society of Canada, along with events hosted by the Entomological Societies of China, Brazil, Australia, and others.--Richard Levine, ESA
(Editor's Note: The two co-chairs planning the ICE conference are Walter Leal, former professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, and now with the Department of Molecular and Cellullar Biology, and Alvin Simmons, research entomologist with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston, S.C.)