View source for Robert Bruce Merrifield

{{Short description|American biochemist}}
{{For|the Canadian politician and diplomat|Rob Merrifield}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Robert Bruce Merrifield
| image             = R._B._Merrifield.jpg
| image_size        = 180px
| caption           = 
| birth_date        = {{Birth date|1921|07|15}}
| birth_place       = [[Fort Worth]], [[Texas]]
| death_date        = {{death date and age|2006|05|14|1921|07|15}}
| death_place       = [[Cresskill, New Jersey]]
| residence         = 
| citizenship       = 
| nationality       = American
| ethnicity         = 
| field             = [[Biochemistry]]
| work_institutions = [[UCLA]]<br>[[Rockefeller University]]
| alma_mater        = [[UCLA]] <small>(Ph.D., 1949)</small>
| doctoral_advisor  = Max S. Dunn
| doctoral_students = 
| known_for         = [[solid phase peptide synthesis]]
| thesis_title      = Microbiological Studies in Pyrimidines
| thesis_year       = 1949
| thesis_url        = https://catalog.library.ucla.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=2312352
| influences        = 
| influenced        = 
| prizes            = [[Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research]] {{small|(1969)}}<br>[[Gairdner Foundation International Award]] <small>(1970)</small><br>[[Nobel Prize in Chemistry]] <small>(1984)</small><br>Golden Plate Award of [[Academy of Achievement]]<ref>{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=[[American Academy of Achievement]]|url=https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#science-exploration}}</ref><small>(1985)</small><br>[[Glenn T. Seaborg Medal]] <small>(1993)</small><br>[[Chemical Pioneer Award]] <small>(1993)</small>
| religion          = 
| footnotes         = 
| signature         = 
}}

'''Robert Bruce Merrifield''' (July 15, 1921 – May 14, 2006) was an American [[biochemist]] who won the [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry]] in 1984 for the invention of [[solid phase peptide synthesis]].<ref>{{cite news |title=R. Bruce Merrifield, Who Won Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Dies at 84 |author=Kenneth Chang |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=2006-05-06 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/nyregion/20merrifield.html |access-date=2008-04-12}}</ref>

==Early life==
He was born in [[Fort Worth]], [[Texas]], on 15 July 1921, the only son of George E. Merrifield and Lorene née Lucas. In 1923 the family moved to [[California]] where he attended nine grade schools and two high schools before graduating from [[Montebello High School]] in 1939. It was there that he developed an interest both in [[chemistry]] and in [[astronomy]].

After two years at [[Pasadena Junior College]] he transferred to the [[University of California at Los Angeles]] (UCLA). After graduation in chemistry he worked for a year at the Philip R. Park Research Foundation taking care of an animal colony and assisting with growth experiments on synthetic [[amino acid]] diets. One of these was the experiment by Geiger using the [[law of the minimum]] that first demonstrated that the [[essential amino acid]]s must be present ''simultaneously'' for growth to occur.<ref>{{cite journal |first=E. |last=Geiger |title=Experiments with delayed supplementation of incomplete amino acid mixtures |journal=[[Journal of Nutrition]] |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=97–111 |date=1947 |doi=10.1093/jn/34.1.97 |pmid=20244454 |url=}}</ref>

He returned to graduate school at the UCLA chemistry department with professor of biochemistry M.S. Dunn to develop microbiological methods for the quantitation of the [[pyrimidine]]s. The day after graduating on 19 June 1949, he married Elizabeth Furlong and the next day left for [[New York City]] and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

==Career==
At the institute, later [[Rockefeller University]], he worked as an Assistant for Dr. [[Dilworth Wayne Woolley|D.W. Woolley]] on a dinucleotide growth factor he discovered in graduate school and on peptide growth factors that Woolley had discovered earlier. These studies led to the need for [[peptide synthesis]] and, eventually, to the idea for solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) in 1959. In 1963, he was sole author of a classic paper in the ''[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]]'' in which he reported a method he called "solid phase peptide synthesis".<ref>{{Citation| title= Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis. I. The Synthesis of a Tetrapeptide| author= R. B. Merrifield| journal= Journal of the American Chemical Society| year=1963| volume=85| pages=2149–2154|doi=10.1021/ja00897a025| issue= 14| bibcode= 1963JAChS..85.2149M}}</ref> This article is the fifth most cited paper in the journal's history.

In the mid-60s Dr. Merrifield's laboratory first synthesized bradykinin, angiotensin, desamino-oxytocin and insulin. In 1969, he and his colleague Bernd Gutte announced the first synthesis of the enzyme ribonuclease A. This work proved the chemical nature of enzymes.
<ref>{{Citation| title= The Synthesis of Ribonuclease A| author= Bernd Gutte and R. B. Merrifield| journal= The Journal of Biological Chemistry| year=1971| volume=246| issue= 6| pages=1922–1941| doi= 10.1016/S0021-9258(18)62396-8|pmid= 5102153| doi-access= free}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |pmid = 17516587 |last=Jones |first=John H |publication-date=June 2007 
|year=2007 |title=R.B. Merrifield: European footnotes to his life and work
|volume=13 |issue=6 |pages=363–7 |doi = 10.1002/psc.857 |journal=[[Journal of Peptide Science]]|s2cid=40900106 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |pmid = 16850497 |last=Gierasch
|first=Lila M |publication-date=2006
|year=2006 |title=Editorial: Passing of a gentle giant of peptide science: in memoriam, R. Bruce Merrifield |volume=84 |issue=5 |pages=433–4 |doi = 10.1002/bip.20574 |journal=Biopolymers|s2cid=37585286
|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Citation
|pmid=16825560 |last=Lerner |first=Richard A
|publication-date=July 7, 2006 |year=2006 |title=Retrospective. R. Bruce Merrifield (1921-2006) |volume=313 |issue=5783 |periodical=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |pages=57 |doi = 10.1126/science.1130957|s2cid=170949560 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |pmid=3883428 |last=Sano |first=S |publication-date=January 1985 |year=1985 |title=Work of Dr. Robert Merrifield, with special reference to the development of solid phase peptide synthesis |volume=30
|issue=1 |periodical=Tanpakushitsu Kakusan Koso |pages=51–3}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |pmid=6389076 |last=Domagk |first=G F |publication-date=December 7, 1984 |year=1984 |title=[The 1984 Nobel prize for chemistry. Synthetic hormones and enzymes with Merrifield's peptide synthesizer] |volume=109 |issue=49 |periodical=Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr.
|pages=1901–2}}</ref><ref>{{Nobelprize|name=Bruce Merrifield|accessdate=2020-10-13}}</ref>

Dr. Merrifield's method greatly stimulated progress in biochemistry, pharmacology and medicine, making possible the systematic exploration of the structural basis of the activities of enzymes, hormones and antibodies. The development and applications of the technique continued to occupy his laboratory, where he remained active at the bench until recently. In 1993, [[Jeffrey I. Seeman]] published ''Life during a Golden Age of Peptide Chemistry'', Merrifield's autobiography, in the series "Profiles, Pathways, and Dreams" for the [[American Chemical Society]]. He received the [[Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities]] Award for outstanding contributions to Biomolecular Technologies in 1998.

The achievement of synthesizing [[ribonuclease A]] (with Bernd Gutte) was all the more significant in that it demonstrated that the linear sequence of amino acids joined in [[peptide bond]]s determined directly the [[protein tertiary structure]], that is, information coded in one dimension can directly determine the three-dimensional structure of a molecule.

SPPS has been expanded to include solid phase synthesis of nucleotides and saccharides.

==Personal life==
After raising their 6 children, James, Nancy, Betsy, Cathy, Laurie and Sally, his wife Elizabeth (Libby), a biologist by training, joined the Merrifield laboratory at Rockefeller University where she worked for over 23 years.

After a long illness R. Bruce Merrifield died on May 14, 2006, at the age of 84 in his home in [[Cresskill, New Jersey]].<ref>Petkewich, Rachel. [http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/84/i22/8422merrifield.html "Nobel Laureate R. Bruce Merrifield Dies At 84"], ''[[Chemical & Engineering News]]'', May 23, 2006. Accessed May 9, 2007. "Robert Bruce Merrifield, a biochemist who won the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a method he named solid-phase peptide synthesis, died on May 14 at his home in Cresskill, N.J., after a long illness. He was 84."</ref> At the time of his death he was survived by his wife Libby, their 6 children and 16 grandchildren. Libby died on September 13, 2017.

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links ==
* [http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/merrifield-bruce.pdf Ulf Ragnarsson, "Bruce Merrifield", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2013)]
* {{Nobelprize|name=Bruce Merrifield}}

{{Nobel Prize in Chemistry Laureates 1976-2000}}
{{1984 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merrifield, Robert B}}
[[Category:American biochemists]]
[[Category:American Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Chemistry]]
[[Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty]]
[[Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni]]
[[Category:People from Cresskill, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Scientists from Fort Worth, Texas]]
[[Category:1921 births]]
[[Category:2006 deaths]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research]]
[[Category:Rockefeller University people]]
[[Category:People from Montebello, California]]