Peter Agre Succeeds Torsten Wiesel as Chair of the Committee on Human Rights

On January 1, 2005, Nobel Laureate Peter Agre became the fifth chair of the Committee on Human Rights (CHR) of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. He succeeds Nobel Laureate Torsten Wiesel, president emeritus of The Rockefeller University, who chaired the committee from 1994-2004. Previous chairs were Eliot Stellar (1984-1993), Lipman Bers (1979 – 1984), and Robert Kates, (1976-1979). Dr. Wiesel will continue to serve as a member of the Executive Committee of the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies and of the International Scientific Council of the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization. He is a founding member of both organizations.

Dr. Agre has been a “correspondent” of the CHR for several years and became an active member of the committee in 2003. A professor of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Dr. Agre was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Roderick MacKinnon, in 2003. He has been appointed to a three-year term as CHR chair, which is renewable.