<\/p>\n
Peter Agre \u201870 claims that if he had been born into another family, he might not have become a scientist. But the Nobel-prize-winning physician-researcher is the son of Courtland Agre, PhD, who founded the department of chemistry at Augsburg in 1959. And if there was anything his father could do, it was inspire interest in science.<\/p>\n
Beloved by students who knew he wanted them to succeed first in class and then in their careers, Courtland taught chemistry to a generation and then encouraged them to do great things with it– hundreds went on to graduate or \u201cHe felt very strongly that these young people, even though they were mostly from families of modest personal wealth, could achieve significant things in science, and they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was fitting, then, when he passed away in 1995, that the Agre family, former students and friends established the Courtland L. Agre Memorial Scholarship to provide \u201cencouragement\u201d as well as financial assistance to juniors or seniors studying chemistry. Since then, 23 students have received awards and a nudge from the professor long gone.<\/p>\n
Courtland himself proved that someone born, raised, and educated in Minnesota could make it in other arenas. After earning his PhD at the University of Minnesota, he worked on plastics at Du Pont and adhesives at 3M before deciding to teach (first at St. Olaf and for most of his career at Augsburg). As a member of the faculty, he traveled to India to teach, did research, and one year secured a National Science Foundation grant, enabling him to do a sabbatical at the University of California Berkeley. \u201cSo we all [the family of then-seven] moved out there in an old station wagon,\u201d Peter recalls. \u201cWe were kind of like the Norwegian version of the Beverly Hillbillies.\u201d There Courtland met luminaries like two-time Nobel winner Linus Pauling, who would later visit Augsburg. \u201cHe taught the big picture of what science could provide,\u201d Peter says.<\/p>\n
That was a picture he shared with all, including his sons, who majored in chemistry at Augsburg and then went on to medical school. They weren\u2019t pressured to do so, according to Peter. It was more that they were exposed to a parade of former students, colleagues, and visitors from academia, medicine, and industry. \u201cThere were plenty of role models,\u201d he says, adding that by comparison, other fields just didn\u2019t seem as important or interesting.<\/p>\n
Peter Agre is now a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. Jim Agre \u201972, former head of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Wisconsin, is now a member of the rehabilitation medicine faculty at the University of Minnesota. And youngest brother Mark Agre \u201881 is a rehabilitation medicine specialist in St. Paul. Their sister Annetta graduated in 1969 \u00a0with a major in elementary education.<\/p>\n
Each year, at an annual symposium, the sons of Courtland Agre do what their father did for so many years\u2014encourage students to think big about careers in science. Peter hopes the event opens students\u2019 eyes to new possibilities. \u201cI\u2019m encouraging them to think creatively and not necessarily constrain their aspiration based on family and friends,\u201d he says. His own career has included not only the research on cells that led to his Nobel prize but also working on malaria, advising national leaders on health policy, and engaging in international exchanges with scientists from countries including Cuba and North Korea. \u201cScience opens doors,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
This year at the symposium Jim Agre will talk about the ground-breaking research he did on the late effects of polio. In the 1980s and 1990s, patients who had had polio in the 1950s came to him with questions about problems including fatigue, weakness, and pain. \u201cWhen I looked at the literature, there were no answers to the questions the patients had,\u201d he says. \u201cThat led me to write research grants to get funded so I could study the problems.\u201d His research helped explain what was going on as well as what could be done about it.<\/p>\n
Jim Agre now teaches residents to do what he learned\u2014to observe, ask questions, and base conclusions on evidence. He knows his own thinking was heavily influenced by the man who was both father and professor, and he hopes the scholarships given in Courtland\u2019s name will help students to be inquisitive and observant as well. \u201cSupporting students is important,\u201d he says, citing the high cost of education. He then points out another reason for investing in students: \u201cIt\u2019s to the benefit of the country to have a population who\u2019ve been taught to look at important issues and ask, \u2018Are we really doing the right thing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By Carmen Peota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter Agre \u201870 claims that if he had been born into another family, he might not have become a scientist. But the Nobel-prize-winning physician-researcher is the son of Courtland Agre, PhD, who founded the department of chemistry at Augsburg in 1959. And if there was anything his father could do, it was inspire interest …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,7,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-augsburg-fund","category-donor-recognition","category-gift-announcements","category-giving","category-giving-to-augsburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47418"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48946,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47418\/revisions\/48946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}