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A Life in Science by Peter Agre, Nobel Laureate

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A Life in Science by Peter Agre, Nobel Laureate ASSOCIATION AFFAIRS PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS chemist holding test tubes, since I wanted to be like my father—a chemist. On a Saturday afternoon in October 1957, Life on the River of Science Dad came across the meadow to where my brothers and I were playing ball to bring us Peter Agre home for dinner. As we walked, he spoke of the breaking news story on the radio: the THE YEAR 2010 MARKED THE CENTENNIAL Although it occurred more than 50 years launching of Sputnik. We scanned the sky of Mark Twain’s death. More than any other ago, I distinctly recall Wernher von Braun and failed to see the satellite, but it was no American author, Twain exemplifi ed the use discussing rocketry and space travel. In an less real. More than any other single event, of personal anecdotes to illustrate events in unforgettable Disney program, University the launching of Sputnik began a remarkable our nation’s history. With this in mind, I will of California Berkeley Nobel laureate Glenn renewal of the already strong American sup- attempt to share my experiences in science, Seaborg provided a remarkable demonstra- port for science. The motivation was based on beginning one half-century ago, with a view tion of the chemical chain reaction. Holding the national humiliation of being beaten into for how we as individuals are part of the great a spring-loaded mousetrap with a ping-pong space by our adversary, the Soviet Union, but river that science has become. ball on it, he sprung the trap and the ball the outcome was very positive. It is my hope to stimulate young scien- fl ew. The camera then panned a room with The outpouring of funds for science and tists and inform the nonscientifi c public that the fl oor covered with activated mousetraps, science education affected us directly. Dad achieving success in science involves several each with a ping-pong ball on it. Seaborg wrote a National Science Foundation Fellow- features. But if my experience is represen- tossed in one ping-pong ball, and within sec- ship that allowed us to move to Berkeley, Cal- tative, the most important features include onds the room was a cloud of fl ying mouse- ifornia, for a sabbatical year at the University basic curiosity, the will to take chances, traps and ping-pong balls. of California. Perhaps resembling the Nor- and the generous attention of family mem- on January 28, 2011 bers and teachers. Probably for most indi- viduals who became scientists during this time, guarantees of fi nancial success were not considered, and with no large fortune to lose, it is no surprise that many scientists came from America’s large middle class. Science and Growing Up in the 1950s While I was a child in the 1950s, “science” www.sciencemag.org was a word familiar to American schoolchil- dren. Just a decade earlier, the end of World War II, brought about by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, made everyone aware that we had entered the nuclear age. Because the polio epidemic had touched tens of thousands of American Downloaded from Seal River enters Hudson Bay, 2004 families, the name of vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk was universally recognized. The widespread introduction of tele- Of course, actual hands-on science wegian equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies, vision into American homes in the 1950s trumped even television, and having a father we packed our old Chevrolet station wagon allowed American children to see the special who was head of the chemistry department for the drive across the country. We arrived magic of science by watching Don Herbert at St. Olaf College, a small liberal arts school in Berkeley, a forward-thinking, multicultural as “Mr. Wizard” on Saturday mornings. On in the rolling farmlands of southern Minne- community markedly unlike our quiet farm- Sunday evenings, children viewed the Dis- sota, gave me opportunities available to few ing community in southern Minnesota. ney show, whose format refl ected the four children. My brothers and I marveled as we kingdoms of the Disneyland amusement added a drop of a colorless solution to a bea- A Family’s Scientifi c Hero park, one of which, Tomorrowland, focused ker containing another colorless solution Hero fi gures are important in the development on science. that instantly turned brilliant pink. Addi- of a child. During our year in California, we tion of a drop from a third solution caused became familiar with Dad’s new colleagues, the pink color to disappear again. What we including a chemist from Caltech with whom Peter Agre is university professor and director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute at the Johns Hopkins fi rst viewed as “magic” became understand- Dad served on the American Chemical Soci- Bloomberg School of Public Health. He served as the presi- able when we learned about alkali, acid, and ety Education Committee. dent of the American Association for the Advancement of indicator dyes. Marked by the experience, Linus Pauling had an exuberant personal- Science (AAAS) from February 2009 to February 2010. I recall our third-grade teacher asking us ity, and we got to know him when he stayed at This article is adapted from the Presidential Address he delivered at the AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego on 18 to draw ourselves as adults performing our our house. Eating cornfl akes at the breakfast February 2010. life’s work. I proudly drew a picture of a table with the tall, grinning Pauling, wearing BOB FRENCH CREDIT: 416 28 JANUARY 2011 VOL 331 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS 2010 a black beret over his curly white hair, was a farm girl who never had the simply unforgettable. Dad always beamed opportunity to attend college, about Pauling, who had received the 1954 was self-taught through a love Nobel Prize for Chemistry for elucidating of reading. And she read to us the nature of the chemical bond and solv- every night from the children’s ing structures of proteins. That he discovered Bible as well as great books hemoglobin S, the molecular cause of sickle like the Laura Ingalls Wilder cell anemia, was no less astonishing. series. I remember snuggling In addition to his brilliant laboratory with my siblings on the sofa research, Pauling also had a unique role as a during cold Minnesota eve- science activist. Well known in the 1950s for nings as Mother read. his opposition to U.S. nuclear weapons devel- Although I was just a small opment, Pauling’s public visibility caused the child, it became obvious to me U.S. State Department to revoke his pass- that two of my five siblings port. Falsely accused of being a communist, were already manifesting life- Pauling frequently provoked the right wing long disabilities: a brother of American politics during and after the diagnosed with mental retarda- McCarthy era. tion and motor skill dysfunc- Lecturing prodigiously around the world, tion and a sister with a variant Pauling often presented technical lectures of Tourette syndrome and a about chemistry during the day and edu- lack of impulse control. While cational lectures to the public at night. my parents did not dwell on it The public lectures focused on the danger excessively, we were neverthe- on January 28, 2011 of thermonuclear weapons testing, made less reminded that all were not internationally famous due to publication equivalently blessed, and we of his bestseller entitled No More War (1). were always encouraged to use A remarkable raconteur, Pauling conveyed our talents for the well-being nuclear testing information in terms that all of those less fortunate. could understand, saying that the dangers Also strongly encouraged that radioactive fallout held for the health of Linus Pauling, White House, 1962 in our Minnesota Norwegian innocent people had become an international Lutheran community was a crisis. Pauling seemingly used every possible reduced the tension of the nuclear arms race. sense of responsibility for those in the devel- www.sciencemag.org opportunity to speak out. As Kennedy was being buried in Arlington oping world. Medical missionaries were In April 1962, Pauling was one of 49 Cemetery, the Pauling family was prepar- widely respected throughout our community. Nobel laureates invited to a black tie dinner ing for his trip to Oslo to receive his second Minnesota Governor Al Quie’s sister, a nurse, at the White House hosted by President Ken- Nobel: the 1962 Peace Prize. and her husband, a surgeon, spent their entire nedy—an event Kennedy later recalled as Others have frequently commented on careers attending to the health needs of rural “the most extraordinary collection of talent, Pauling’s exceptional personality. Roughly 9 Cameroon. Even our congressman, Walter of human knowledge, that has ever been gath- years ago at a reception in Stockholm, I had Judd, had spent a decade as a physician serv- Downloaded from ered together at the White House, with the the opportunity to meet James Watson. Hav- ing the poor in rural China. possible exception of when Thomas Jeffer- ing reread his classic The Double Helix (3) Having the opportunity to attend Augs- son dined alone.” Not about to miss an oppor- on a family wilderness canoe trip the summer burg College in Minneapolis, where Father tunity to publicly press for an end to nuclear before, I complimented Watson on the fi rst taught after leaving St. Olaf, I majored in testing, Pauling in shirtsleeves joined a pro- sentence—a grabber that draws the reader’s chemistry and received outstanding lec- test on the sidewalks around the White House attention: “I have never seen Francis Crick tures and laboratory experiences.
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