We, at the Bulgarian Society for Cell Biology and Biomedical Reviews, support the petition of the Romanian scientist Gheorghe Benga (see pages ix-xi), to be appreciated as a discoverer of the first water channel protein, later named aquaporin 1 (see Dance Round on pages 107-112). Instead, the Nobel Committee did honor Peter Agre, not Benga, with the Nobel Prize-2003. In fact, both Benga and Agre should be jointly awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (not for chemistry, as being judged for Agre). Actually, both scientists are leading "aqueous" peers with one difference between them: Benga was responsible for the discovery work that led to the concept of the plasma membrane's water channel proteins, whereas Agre furthered the story.
Biomedical Reviews 2006; 17: viii.
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