SCIENCE

PITTSBURGH — The 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded yesterday to Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon for pioneering discoveries on the selectivity of ion channels in cell membranes. Related to this work, the Nobel public information highlights simulations last year using LeMieux, PSC's terascale system, by Klaus Schulten and colleagues at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. This frame from a simulation of aquaporin represents water molecules (red and white) passing from outside the cell (top) through the aquaporin channel in single file to the cell interior. The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh together with the Westinghouse Electric Company. It was established in 1986 and is supported by several federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and private industry. Public Information on the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: http://www.nobel.se/chemistry/laureates/2003/public.html Animations from simulations at PSC: http://www.nobel.se/chemistry/laureates/2003/public.html More on Schulten's aquaporin simulations at PSC: http://www.psc.edu/science/schulten2002.html The Schulten group's statement at their website: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/