 Francis Collins, present director of the NIH, was the first to receive the prize, which honored his discovery of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator encoding gene CFTR, mutated in cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease commonly found in Caucasian populations and often accompanied by severe pulmonary manifestations.Peter Agre, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was recognized with the Will Rogers Institute Annual Prize for Research in 2008 for his discovery of aquaporins