Robert Bruce Merrifield

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Robert Bruce Merrifield

Robert Bruce Merrifield , called Bruce Merrifield, (born July 15, 1921 in Fort Worth , Texas , † May 14, 2006 in Cresskill , New Jersey ), was an American chemist who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1984 .

life and career

He was born the only son of George E. Merrifield and Lorene, nee Lucas. In 1923 the family moved to California , where he went to nine elementary schools and two high schools before graduating from Montebello High School in 1939. There he developed an interest in chemistry as well as astronomy .

After two years at Pasadena Junior College , he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he received his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1943. He then worked for the Philip R. Park Research Foundation in 1943/44, where he looked after a colony of laboratory animals and assisted in experiments on the growth of synthetic amino acids . One of these experiments was the first to show that the required amino acids must be present at the same time to enable growth.

He then returned to UCLA's chemistry department for a doctorate while also serving as a chemistry assistant at UCLA's medical school. With MS Dunn he developed microbiological methods for the quantification of pyrimidines and did his doctorate with him with the thesis Microbiological Studies in Pyrimidines . One day after completing his doctorate on June 19, 1949, he married Elizabeth Furlong and went the next day to New York and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (later Rockefeller University ), where he was an assistant for biochemistry. In 1953 he became a member of the Rockefeller Institute. From 1957 he was assistant professor and later professor there, from 1984 as John D. Rockefeller Jr. professor . From 1993 he was Professor Emeritus. In 1969 he was a Nobel Visiting Professor at Uppsala University .

Merrifield died on May 14, 2006 after a long illness at the age of 84. He left behind his wife, six children and 16 grandchildren.

plant

In 1963 he published the solid phase synthesis of proteins and peptides he had developed . The main idea is that biological molecules such as proteins or peptides are linear polymers and that when they are synthesized, one end can be coupled to a matrix. This method was later applied to the synthesis of oligonucleotides, sugars and other complex organic molecules. The breakthrough of this method undoubtedly came with the synthesis of ribonuclease A consisting of 124 amino acids, which he realized in 1969 with Bernd Gutte.

From 1969 he was co-editor of the International Journal of Peptide and Protein Research.

Honors and memberships

Merrifield was a member of the National Academy of Science, Washington. In 1969 he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research , 1970 a Gairdner Foundation International Award and the Intra-Science Award, 1972 the Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the American Chemical Society , 1973 the Nichols Medal, 1979 the Alan E. Pierce Award and in 1990 the Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry . He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences . Merrifield has received several honorary doctorates (including University of Colorado, Uppsala, Yale, Boston College, Barcelona, ​​Montpellier).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biographies, Publications, and Academic Family Tree of R. Bruce Merrifield at academictree.org, accessed January 2, 2019.
  2. Rachel Petkewich: In "Nobel Laureate R. Bruce Merrifield This At 84", Chemical & Engineering News , May 23, of 2006.
  3. Robert Bruce Merrifield, Solid phase peptide synthesis Journal of the American Chemical Society Volume85, Issue 14 pp. 2149-54 doi: 10.1021 / ja00897a025
  4. ^ GF Domagk: In "The 1984 Nobel prize for chemistry. Synthetic hormones and enzymes with Merrifield's peptide synthesizer", Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr. 1984 , 109 , 1901-1902.
  5. ^ S. Sano: In "Work of Dr. Robert Merrifield, with special reference to the development of solid phase peptide synthesis", Tanpakushitsu Kakusan Koso 1985 , 30 , 51-53.
  6. Career dates and honors based on American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2005.