If there is a stereotype in the public's mind of what a Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry is like, the odds are strong that Peter Agre does not fit it.

Where some might expect him to inhabit a rarefied world of equations and white lab coats, he is down-to-earth, plain-spoken, and self-effacing. Though he knows some of the world's most accomplished scientists and advised President Barack Obama during last fall's campaign, he is eager to talk about the teachers and clergy who were influential as he grew up in small-town Minnesota. And though his biomedical research solved one of the enduring mysteries of how cells work, he got a D in chemistry during his senior year of high school because, he says now, he was preoccupied with skiing and girls.

Such character markers prompted one admiring colleague to call Agre "the people's laureate." And in an interview last month as he prepared to assume the presidency of AAAS, his down-home values were evident as stressed the need for scientists to engage in their communities--in schools, local politics, and other venues--to share and convey the practical benefits that research brings to our lives.

"There so much depiction in the movies of scientists as villains or mad scientists," he said. "And there's so little contact between scientists and the American public that most Americans can't think of the name of a single living scientist...

"Scientists have been so worried about getting funded that they probably have not invested as much as they should in terms of public awareness," he added. "This is not something a graduate student could do because they're working night and day to get their thesis done. But it seems to me that every tenured faculty in America owes something, and my idea would be tithing 10% of your time for the public good....I think being part of the public debate is very important--and that's where we're overdue."

Agre, who turned 60 a few weeks ago, became the president of AAAS this week at the close of the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago. During the interview, he talked about issues that will be central to his year as AAAS president:

The integrity of public school science education: "Science organizations should work to educate the public in areas where anti-evolution groups are trying to change school curricula. But, Agre added, "I think it's more important to be convincing than to be simply correct, and showing respect for the religious values of others is very important.  On that, I fear some members of our scientific community have been insensitive."

U.S. science policy: "The respect that Barack Obama has consistently projected for science gives me great confidence.... Until this economic recession or fear of depression is remedied, there may not be increased budgets, but I think by stating the importance and having several of America's best scientists in the White House--Steven Chu, Eric Lander, Harold Varmus, Jane Lubchenco and John Holden--the issues of science, the importance of science, will be right at hand."

Science diplomacy: "These so-called 'Axis of Evil' nations, they contain a lot of good scientists who are neglected or isolated....But in terms of validating the positions of these professors at their universities and the schools, I think that's a good thing to do, and it's also personally very rewarding."

It's impossible to understand Agre's work without understanding his youth in Minnesota. His father, a chemist, brought his children to the lab on weekends and set up simple experiments for them. His mother read to him and his brothers and sisters--Treasure Island, Little House on the Prairie, the Bible. Agre, with his brother Jim, became an Eagle Scout and learned to love the outdoors.

In 1970, he graduated from Augsburg College in Minneapolis with a degree in chemistry. He headed to Johns Hopkins University via the western route--hitchhiking to Baltimore by way of Laos, Pakistan, Iran and other nations before arriving in Baltimore. In 1974, he received his M.D.; it was at Hopkins, he said, that he became devoted to biomedical research. After clinical training at Case Western University Hospitals in Cleveland and post-graduate medical training at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he returned to Hopkins.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, his lab was focused on the molecular makeup of Rh blood group antigen. While his team tried to analyze one protein, they unexpectedly discovered another. Further research demonstrated that the new protein was common in red blood cells and in the kidneys, and that it was related to proteins in the brain of fruit flies, the lens of cows' eyes and other sources. Its function, however, was elusive.

In 1991, while returning from a family vacation in Florida, Agre stopped in North Carolina and visited with one of his mentors, John Parker, a hematologist and membrane physiologist. After listening to his student's explanation, Parker suggested that the protein might be the long-suspected-but-never-proven water channel.

Back in Baltimore, further research confirmed that idea: Aquaporins, they discovered, were the channels that control water molecule transport through cell membranes in a process essential to all living organisms. For that discovery, Agre won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (He shared the prize with Roderick MacKinnon of Rockefeller University.)

He seems to delight in telling of his mother's response when his wife, Mary, called to tellher the news of her son's great honor: "Well," his mother said, "tell him not to let it go to his head."

The prize, along with his earlier work as a doctor and his affable manner, have combined to give Agre broad credibility. And his commitment to public service places him squarely in the tradition of many past AAAS presidents.

AAAS senior writer Edward W. Lempinen interviewed Agre last month by phone.

Let me start by asking you a couple of questions about your youth--we'll see if we can draw any connections to your career.  In the biography you wrote when you won the Nobel, you described being an Eagle Scout. My impression was that you're still pretty proud of that.

I am.
 
Did that have any bearing on your work as a scientist or how you've approached your work? Did it shape your values, or--

Well, the Boy Scouts of America likes to project this as the cause and the effect. That may be a slight exaggeration, but Scouting was a very important part of my upbringing. In  part, I got the Eagle because my brother Jim, who's a year younger than I am, is a much better citizen.  He did his homework, he was captain of the basketball team, and we were Scouts together, and of course we got a lot of encouragement--with an exclamation point--from my father and mother to get the Eagle award.  And of course Jim knew the answers to all of the questions, so we'd go to a merit badge class and he would pass with flying colors. I sort of showed up, but the merit badge counselors didn't have the heart to pass one brother and flunk the other. So in truth I see my Eagle badge as a default, but I'm proud of it nonetheless.  It represents a really good thing, I think, for young people.

And Scouting itself is based upon outdoor activities--there's nothing else quite like that for young people.  So it has shaped me.  Every summer I go on a wilderness canoe trip, up in Alaska or Canada.  That started back when we were Boy Scouts.

You've told a story of getting a D when you were in high school chemistry class. How did that happen--and is there a lesson in that for students today?

[He chuckles.] Well, first, I wish I had never mentioned this. I revealed it once to a reporter, and my grade became the news. I was not a perfect student in high school, but I was a good student, particularly when I was interested in the subject.  I went to Theodore Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis.  Our most famous graduate was Governor Jesse Ventura, whom I knew peripherally. He was two years younger than I.

My senior year at Roosevelt, I was on the school cross-country ski racing team.  I had enough credits after the first semester to graduate, but if I withdrew and enrolled in college, I couldn't participate on the ski team or go to our annual ski championship.  Well, I was enrolled until late March, basically just showing up and flirting with girls and getting into trouble by publishing an underground newspaper, When I withdrew to start college--I had enough credits for graduation, but still had to go around to each class and get the grade since the last marking period.  And that's where my chemistry teacher, Mr. Thornton, a wonderful man, looked me in the eye and said: "Agre, you've done nothing, but I'll give you a D."  I answered, "I'll take it."

I tell young people it's not something that I recommend.  So, anyway, it was not for a total lack of ability but more from  a lack of maturity.  And there's a lesson.  I ended up matriculating at the small liberal arts school where my father taught--Augsburg College-- because I was not ready to attend a major, selective university. But at Augsburg I really got excited about science in preparation to become a medical doctor.  So everything turned out fine.  But I think for parents with seniors in high school who are getting D's, this is a warning, a wake-up call.

In America, you don't have to be perfect to do something important, but I think a lot of parents now, are either neglecting their kids, which is tragic, or over-steering them by  taking them to SAT prep classes when they're only 11 years old. Let the kids grow up.  I was a little slow growing up myself.  

A lot of studies and news reports in recent years have detailed the declining performance of U.S. students in science and math. Is there anything you can think of that could be done to reverse that trend?

There are two issues:  First: Are these international test scores a fair assessment of how our students are doing? Sadly, I think in many ways they are.  Of course there are plenty of American kids that do extremely well on achievement testing, and they come from backgrounds with a lot of parental supervision, maybe sometimes too much.  Many other kids are left to flounder, and their school work is not taken seriously enough.  Second: How can we as a society get our young people engaged?  It's not simply a matter of putting more money into the school budget. We've got the money, but we also have to take education more seriously.  

I was a child in Northfield, Minnesota, a little town, with two colleges--Carleton and St. Olaf--and the G.T. Schjeldahl engineering company. Northfield has the highest concentration of Ph.D.s of any town in the United States. Yet the most respected people in our town were the ministers and the school teachers.  That was because everybody's children went there--whether the son or daughter of a farmer or of a college professor or of an advanced engineer, we all went to the same schools and churches. The teachers took on all comers, and we were all encouraged to take school seriously.  I think back then the teachers got a lot of respect from the community, which is something that I fear has eroded.  

It really hits me in the heartstrings when I meet a younger person, and I ask about their career, and they say, "Oh, I'm just a school teacher." Teachers are so important, and I think that we really need to get behind them.  As incoming president of AAAS, I want to convey to the public the importance of science, and also the allied message, which is that we need to enhance our educational system.

The Minneapolis Public Schools now have a graduation rate of below 50%.  It is astonishing that most of the students will never finish high school.  I'm on a task force with the superintendent of schools in Minneapolis.  What can we do about this, because without a high school degree, you are not prepared for much and may become simply a cost to society. Just look at our prisons.  We have 2.3 million Americans in prison, and what is their educational record? The cost of education is significant, but the cost of not educational failure is enormous.  

So I think it is an issue of investing. It's also an issue of getting our citizens behind education.  The schools should not be blamed for every problem.  When children come and they're unprepared, it may be because they come from broken homes in inner city circumstances with no books and behavioral problems. These problems will not be easy to fix.  
Although I was somewhat of a rakehell in high school, it was not because my family was not behind me. As one of six kids, our mother read to us every night.  We knew a lot by the time we went to first grade.  Mother read to us from the Children's Bible and the classics, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Robert Louis Stevenson. Dad taught us numbers, and also we'd go to his laboratory and do little experiments.  I had a pretty rich childhood.

And he did that from an early age, right?

Yes.  In third grade, our teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we'd do when we became adults, I drew a picture of a chemist in a laboratory with a bunch of test tubes, because that was really my dad.  He was my hero.  Although sitting beside me was my buddy, Jay Peterson, whose dad was a professor of biology, and Jay was drawing a burglar. [He laughs.] And truth be told, I recently learned Jay did not become a criminal.  He in fact is a biologist--a primate specialist at one of the large zoos in the Midwest. Jay knew he wasn't going to be a burglar.

A couple of years ago you were a guest on The Colbert Report (the late night satirical news program). What was the reaction to that among your colleagues?

The danger is you're going to antagonize people--"Oh, here he is, trying to get attention." The invitation to appear on The Colbert Report was the result of my involvement with Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA). It's an advocacy group--not campaigning for individual candidates, but for the enlightened science policies, and the candidates' need to address these issues.  Anyway, even Stephen Colbert learned about SEA because. it was covered in The New York Times, and the producer called me up and invited me on the show.  So I appeared on The Colbert Report. I was totally at his mercy because his jokes are all scripted, and the guest is the cannon fodder.

Right.

I think I got in a couple of lines that and the viewers found amusing.  But the upshot is--I was the Vice Chancellor at Duke at the time, and the students at Duke are really smart students, but none ever came by to my office to talk about science.  But with The Colbert Report, I became some kind of local celebrity.  This was greatly enjoyed by the students.  My colleagues were also rather amused.  In the end, it was a scientist appearing before the public, and trying to show that there is a human side to being a scientist.  

There so much depiction in the movies of scientists as villains, or mad scientists. And there's so little contact between scientists and the American public that most Americans can't think of the name of a single living scientist.

By the way, Stephen Colbert is an entertainer, but he's from a science family.  His dad was the vice president of the University of South Carolina Medical School. As he grew up, Albert Sabin, the polio vaccine pioneer, was their neighbor. I think Stephen Colbert has always had a great reverence for science.

You've traveled a lot, and when you were younger, you took some big, ambitious trips.  Have you've done a fair amount of international science engagement, too?

Well, the science engagement is recent.  I did take the better part of a year between undergrad and medical school.  I went from Minnesota to Hopkins (in Baltimore) by heading west.  I went around the world, the developing world, Southeast Asia and India.  I was just hitchhiking with backpack, and it was pretty exciting. The science engagement now is a big event, a lot of lectures in foreign countries. I'm a diplomat for American science.  I can't accept all the invitations, but I do make quite a few, and I think it's good.  I think the world respects American science.  The rest of the world does not respect a lot of other things about the U.S. right now, but I'm optimistic that this will change.

What can be accomplished if science diplomacy is approached more systematically? What if the government, the Obama administration, for example, were to get behind it?

Well first, I think the real diplomacy comes from an individual American scientists meeting scientists in other countries. The government can't make you a good speaker or kind-hearted or collegial, but many, many American scientists are.  And of course we have many advantages.  While we worry about funding, our laboratories are much better equipped than most labs around the world.  

The Obama team has already named several outstanding scientists to work within the White House.  These are among of our best scientists, and they all have had experience with international scientists coming to the U.S. or while lecturing abroad.  So it's an informal network, but a kind of a system of friendships that can be very positive.  Scientists will not take down dictators or do anything like that, but we certainly can reemphasize the positive. The so-called "Axis of Evil" nations, they contain a lot of good scientists who are neglected by their governments or are isolated.  We can't do things that are against national policy, certainly. But we can validate the positions of these foreign professors at their universities and institutes. I think that's a good thing to do, and it's also personally very rewarding.

You've mentioned education and the need to encourage science teachers.  Are there other specific initiatives or other general goals that you have for your year as president of AAAS?

We can simply advocate and make the case in a clear way.  I think it's actually very important for the American scientists to take the opportunities to speak with journalists to get the word out.  The readers of Science of course, are people who are already in science, but the lay press and the television journalists will hit the larger number of Americans who are not scientists.  And of course science teachers are a critical to our mission.  They're the ones who make science interesting to children.  I remember in my Nobel banquet speech reciting a line that really resonated with the audience:  "Early in the life of every scientist, a child's first interest in science was sparked by a teacher."

No one has ever come up to me and said, "You know, that's not true." But dozens and dozens of people over the last three or four years have brought back things for me to sign with that line included.  Many have family members who are teachers.  

It's not that we don't have the money to support our teachers better.  People don't go into teaching to make huge salaries.  But they should be comfortable, and they should be able to send their children to top universities, and frankly, on a teacher's salary you can't do that.  When I was the vice chancellor at Duke I met with their honor council and they were wonderful, young, really bright and very concerned. We were talking about the need for diversity at the University, and Duke of course was a Southern university, segregated until 1965.  No blacks on the campus except for those cleaning the toilets. They've made tremendous advances since then.  Then we talked about economic diversity, and I sensed the students weren't with me on this. There were 20 young people, and I said, "Okay, raise your hand if your mother or father is a teacher in a public school." Of the 20, two of them raised their hand.  Then I said, "Well, okay--how many of you have a mother or father who's a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or business executive?"  Every hand went up. I am sure the same is true at other top universities.

So right there we have a class issue. Our teachers are professionals, but they can't afford to send their youngsters to elite universities.  It doesn't seem right.  I sense we can do better.

I want to ask you about the intersection of science and politics. I know you've taken a close interest in this intersection with Scientists and Engineers for America, and you considered running for the Senate last year.

The Senate idea got much attention.  I spent several weeks out in Minnesota talking to people but decided I couldn't get through the Democratic Party primaries without raising several million dollars. I couldn't raise that level of money without inside support, so I didn't run.  I guess it may seem to be a nutty thing to consider.

Do you really think it was nutty?

Well, yes and no.  The nutty part was that I'm still emotionally very much attached to my home state of Minnesota.  Everybody here at Hopkins who knows me, knows that I'm a Norwegian from Minnesota.

But to actually run for office, you have to have a residence in the state, but the legal limit (for establishing residency) is only 30 days. Al Franken ran and raised over $20 million but almost all came from outside of Minnesota. He might have been elected--it's still not clear.  But in my case, being a university faculty member, it's very hard because I'm not personally wealthy. I can't go two years without a salary and with no health care benefits during that time. So it's a very big step, and I talked to a lot of people.  General Wesley Clark, whom I greatly respect and admire, said to me, " Peter, you should run for this, but only if you know you can win."

Interesting.

It would be a big deal, and I would get wiped out financially, and I thought, well, with the proper support I could do it, but my family--my wife is a Marylander, our kids are Marylanders, and they were afraid of this, so it didn't seem like the right thing to do.  But it did, actually, raise an issue: Should scientists be running for office?  And the answer is, unequivocally, yes.  Maybe not starting with the U.S. Senate--I think the school boards, local government are more realistic places to start.  On the other hand, we really need some scientists in the Senate.  We don't have any.  We have two medical doctors in the Senate.  Both are very conservative Republicans with whom I differ with on many scientific issues. We have some scientists in the House of Representatives. Bill Foster from Illinois and Rush Holt from New Jersey are both physicists in Congress.

Scientists have been so worried about getting funded that they have not invested as much as they should in terms of public awareness, volunteering in the schools, and this is not something a graduate student could do because they're working night and day to get their thesis done.  But it seems to me every tenured faculty member in America owes something, and tithing 10% of your time for the public good--you can do that in many different ways. This was proposed by John Holdren when he was President of AAAS.  But I think being a part of the public debate is very important, and that's where we're overdue.

I do think we're actually much more visible. Fifty years ago when I was a child in the post-Sputnik era, science was king. The Disney Show was the most popular children's show on television, every Sunday night. Every fourth week it was a Tomorrowland show about science and technology.  We watched Glenn Seaborg on the television demonstrating the workings of a chemical chain reaction.  Wernher von Braun, the director of NASA, demonstrated the principles of jet propulsion.

That doesn't seem to be the case any longer.  There are special TV channels, but it's not a part of the everyday fabric. Of course, every American in the 1950s knew the name of Jonas Salk. We don't have that kind of awareness now at all.  Francis Collins, Harold Varmus--they're pretty visible, but we haven't had a scientist whose name millions of Americans would recognize since Carl Sagan.

What's changed?

What has changed is that there are so many distractions now.  With cable television you can watch a hundred different television programs. Of course there are some very high-quality programs.  Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and I turned on the public television station.  At 2:00 am there was a captivating program about Dian Fossey and the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.  It was so interesting--there I was, riveted.  But at 2 in the morning, that's not going to reach very many people.  

Let's back up a bit. In asking you about politics, it strikes me that we're at such a remarkable juncture.  Climate and energy, environment issues--they've never been more urgent.  And our new president clearly seems to understand and value science, and then to understand its economic power and its power to improve people's lives.  But is the financial crisis going to constrain the new president to such a degree that he might not be able to pursue a strong science and technology policy?

I think that is a concern, but the respect that Barack Obama has consistently projected for science gives me great confidence.  We may not amplify the budget--probably not in the first year. Until this economic recession or fear of depression is remedied, there may not be increased budgets, but I think by stating the importance and having America's best scientists in the new White House--Steven Chu, Eric Lander, Harold Varmus, Jane Lubchenco and John Holden--the issues of science, the importance of science, will be right at hand.  And so that gives me confidence that if the government is listening, great things can happen.

Dwight Eisenhower, in the post-Sputnik Era, named James Killian, the president of MIT, to be the White House science adviser. Big investments in science were made, and I don't remember at that time any whining that we couldn't raise taxes.  Americans realized this was important.  So I think Obama has a tremendous challenge.  He can't do it alone, but I think he can lead us in a way where proper respect is restored, and then the budgets will be enriched as our national finances allow.  

Right now, you think about the shortfall in science, but the NIH budget was doubled just as George Bush took office, and that was the work of a lot of people.  We've got to give bipartisan credit to Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Tom Harkin from Iowa, and Harold Varmus, (then) the director of NIH (the National Institutes of Health) for pulling that off.  The plan was truncated, but it's not as if the NIH budget has been slashed dramatically. It is less endowed now than it eight years ago, but we're still doing really well compared to most countries.

Obama has been very clear about his respect for science, as has Hillary Clinton.  John McCain previously voiced respect for science although he and his running mate also made some very regrettable statements. So I think good things lie ahead for us.  But it won't be an overnight turnaround.

When we're at this juncture--with hopes balanced against economic realities and a number of urgent issues--is there an overarching objective that the science and technology community in the United States should have?  Is there a game plan that people should have in the next four years, in terms of national science policy?  

I think as a scientist, you go into the lab every day with a game plan.  This is not a random walk towards any old artifact that looks vaguely interesting--you have to have a reason to do an experiment.  But when something very interesting and unforeseen shows up, then you have to make a decision.  Is it something that I should actually look into, or do we just disregard it and get back to the business at hand?  So I'd like to think there are some big advances that are going to occur soon, but it's a very difficult thing to predict.  

My sense is, in terms of needs, there are problems that are so immense that they really do warrant particular attention. That's one of the reasons I chose to get into malaria--which is something I always wanted to do, by the way.  I originally went into medicine because I wanted to be a missionary doctor and work on Third World diseases, and so malaria was always something I wanted to work in.  And it's a problem of huge clinical significance--not in the United States, but in the Third World, particularly in Africa.

But here in the United States the epidemic of obesity is astonishing.  This will certainly reduce the life expectancy of the younger generation, and more importantly will reduce the quality of  life.  You just can't really enjoy being alive when you're carrying around a huge extra burden of fat tissue.  It affects almost everything you do.  So these are areas where advances could be tremendously helpful.

I know life sciences issues best, but in terms of other issues, it's clear that the majority of Americans are now very aware that global climate change is happening, and it's going to continue. It's going to affect our lives negatively. Regarding the issue of fossil fuels, the different political parties have different views.  Either we drill more or we burn less, but we cannot continue as a nation to depend for two-thirds of our energy sources from other countries. These are issues where investment in the sciences, alternative energy generation, could bring big dividends.  

I see actions that are very encouraging.  I just visited an interesting alternative energy group out in Minnesota. Brian Krohn from Cloquet, Minnesota, just won a Rhodes Scholarship, in part for the research he did as an undergraduate at Augsburg College in collaboration with scientists at SarTec, a small biotech energy firm. They  developed a new method of producing bio-diesel with a new catalytic system, a zirconium-based catalysis, turning pond scum lipids from algae, into clean bio-diesel. That's exciting, and he's just one young person working with a small team of others.  That's the sort of thing our country should be behind in the biggest possible way.  I don't see how the politicians could be talking about fighting for this and fighting for that, when all we have to do is get behind the obviously successful technologies.

On climate change--I think the majority of people have come around now and see the reality of it. But at AAAS, we're often engaged in issues where disbelievers or deniers have had a significant influence on public policy.  Why do you think people continue to doubt the validity of evolution, or the reality of climate change, even when scientific evidence is so strong?

I think oftentimes it comes down to an individual having an emotional reason to believe something and does not want to even consider that it may not in fact be correct. I think the religious right has come under a lot of fire because they've been quite uniform and provided a major voting block.  This was how George W. Bush was elected and reelected.  So they have a powerful voice. But I sense these are good people. I have family members, some of them go to these churches, and they're very nice people.  Some individuals derive emotional support from putting blind faith in the teachings of a charismatic clergyman.  

But some of these clergy are pretty hard-line, and there's no way one can logically convince them to consider another viewpoint if they wish not to be convinced.  There was a really interesting article in The New York Times some months ago, about a young science teacher in Florida named David Campbell.  He's trying to teach biology class and evolution to a community in south Florida with many conservative Christians.  Some of the youth have had very tragic lives, and the Church has given them stability.  They find teaching evolution offensive because they feel that it denies their faith.

Campbell said something very brilliant:  "You don't have to believe in evolution, but you do have to understand it."  And I think that's probably a fair statement.  People will choose to have faith, they're convinced of some religious viewpoint, but the workings of the world may not validate everything they tell us.  I don't think there are going to be a lot of individuals who are going to choose to take an antibiotic no longer effective for treating a resistant bacterial strain. That's clearly an example of evolution.  So I think education can bring some enlightenment, but there are going to be limits with the people who refuse to believe science.  There is still a Flat Earth Society in the United Kingdom.  Apparently it gives the members a reason to have get-togethers.  

Should science organizations be engaged in education to try to counteract the disbelief?

Yes, I think so--but education in a warm-hearted and respectful manner. It is not helpful that some scientists project arrogance towards conservative Christians.  

I think it's more important to be convincing than to be simply correct, and showing respect for the religious values of others is very important.  On that, I fear some members of our scientific community have been insensitive. So I think there are some things that we know are scientifically valid, but on the other hand, if a person chooses not to believe in evolution, that doesn't mean we can't still be neighbors and friends.  We certainly are citizens of the same country.  

My impression is that scientists and researchers have become generally more political in the last eight years or so. Do you think that's right?

I think that's true, and I think there are some that have really helped this.  Thomas Pollard at Yale University has been a friend for a long time.  Tom is a very articulate individual who as president of the American Society of Cell Biology and also the Biophysical Society has organized Capitol Hill Day congressional visits where he and other scientists meet with the staffs of the representatives and the senators, and I think this is taking an important role now.  I think more of this could be helpful as long as we're constructive and knowledgeable, not simply complaining that more money is needed.

We should provide specifics, particularly while meeting with individual elected officials to discuss the value of science contributed from their district.  If there's a breakthrough at the University of Minnesota, I think the Minnesota's elected representative should be made aware.
 
If more scientists become politically engaged, does that pose any risks?

Quite possibly as we saw with the stem cell debate. I think by and large the scientific voices were accurate and knowledgeable. But there was some over hype. It didn't help when stem cells were projected as the answer to almost any disease, and cures were predicted to occur within the next 18 months.  The public quickly catches on.

 So we have to be very reasonable in our predictions. If you read any American newspaper, you're going to see articles almost every week  about breakthroughs in cancer research from scientists at the neighboring medical schools.  And of course advances are being made, but people are still dying of cancer. We have to be careful not to over hype.

Do you think that as president of AAAS and as chairman the year after, you'll continue to be politically active?

Oh, yes.  I'm not sure I see myself so much as politically active as <i>civically engaged</i>.

I may never run for an office.  The Senate seat in Minnesota looked important two years ago because at that time it was 50 to 49 in the Senate, and on issues like universal health care, one senator's vote could make a difference.  But I will remain civically engaged for the rest of my career.  

Early in my career, I decided that at age 50 or thereabouts, it would be time to hang it up
in terms of full-time, at-the-bench science and take another role of social or civic importance.  So this is, I think, something I'm very delighted about--a mantle has been placed on me, and I hope to do a good job and put a human face on science because I think the public will respond. When traveling I often sit in an airliner or a bus or a train and chat with the person next to me. When they learn that I'm a scientist doing medical research or basic scientific research, I invariably learn that they have great respect for us.  Tax-paying citizens really appreciate what we scientists are doing.  

So we need to continue to enlighten the public and remind them of the importance of science--not just what our own labs are doing, but what's happening in other labs. American taxpayers have always supported science, and they will continue to support science.  We have to make sure they feel they're getting a proper return for their investment.  I think I might be being able to do a better job communicating science than I did as a bench scientist.  I was never a science fair participant in high school, but I was vice president of the student body, involved in student councils, city student council. I guess that was sort of civic engagement at a younger age.

Are you doing in fact as much lab work as you were earlier? Or did you, when you were 50 or so, begin to cut back?

I cut back, and this is something planned long before the Nobel.  I had students that I wanted to see through to graduation, but I have not taken on new graduate students.  I think the last grad student started in my lab around eight or nine years ago, and we now have more of a professional staff.  I still have two staff scientists down at Duke University, and here at the Malaria Institute at Johns Hopkins, I have two very talented staff scientists.  We may recruit a few post-docs, but I don't want to have a big lab because that would take all of my attention.

I hope that we will have a few things that we think are unique and interesting and some new data. This is important because I get lots of invitations to speak, and while it's fun to go through our past successes, science is about new adventures.  So I'm looking to talk about malaria and the importance of that work.  I've felt a little typecast in the past when  talking about water channels.  Well, that's what we are visible for, but I still have a few years ahead of me, and I don't want to just rest on the past.  But we will have a small lab from here on in.

To the extent you're doing less lab work, do you miss it at all?

Of course.  But, I also miss being 25 years old, being able to run the marathon in under 2 hours and 50 minutes, and being able to stay up all night singing and drinking wine.  I also loved taking care of patients, but there was a point in my career where I could do more science if I gave up the patient care. So you go through phases, and life is an adventure.  I think it's always exciting to come to work.

Now I'm more of an administrator trying to be a cheerleader for science in a global sense, and also a bit of a missionary or ambassador for malaria research.  A finite number of young people are going into science, and of course cancer biology and neuroscience are very exciting, but I hope to make sure that some of these young people consider working on Third World diseases like malaria or TB because these are bad diseases, and I think this is where a lot of advances can be made.

You know, we've covered he questions I wanted to ask you. Do you have any final thoughts before we sign off?

I have to say--journalists play such an important role.  The best movie I saw three years ago, Good Night and Good Luck, was about Edward R. Murrow and he how he individually reversed the McCarthy era.  I think that communicating what we're doing with the public is very, very important, and the attention of journalists is something I really appreciate.  I've had a really wonderful time in science.  Science has been really good to me, but I feel a great desire to repay this.

Being an NIH-funded scientist my whole career, the taxpayers have paid for almost everything.  The greatest compliment I was paid was when introduced before a lecture I gave up at Yale University by Professor Peter Aaronson who stated: "Agre is the people's laureate."  Boy, did that feel good!