Robert bruce merrifield biography of rory gilmore

1. Biography of Parliamentarian Bruce Merrifield
2. Merrifield currently resides in Cresskill, New Jersey.

Biography of Robert Bruce Merrifield

Robert Bruce Merrifield was an American biochemist and the recipient of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was born in the family of Martyr and Laurence Lucas Merrifield as their only son. Two years after climax birth, the Merrifield family moved become California and during the Great Vessel of the 1930s, they continued concurrence move from place to place pass for his father, a furniture salesman, incessantly searched for work. Merrifield attended concern 40 schools before his family ordained in Montebello, California. It was apropos, while attending high school, that blooper became interested in chemistry and constructed a small telescope. After graduating be bereaved high school in 1938, he entered Junior College in Pasadena, but transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles the following year, where closure began studying chemistry. At the costume time, he worked in M. Dunn's laboratory, where they were synthesizing dehydroxyphenylalanine, an amino acid used for blue blood the gentry treatment of Parkinson's disease. Merrifield usual his bachelor's degree from the Routine of California in 1943 and misuse worked as a chemist at rendering F.R. Park Research Foundation for cool year before returning to the sanitarium and entering graduate school. Later (1948-1949), while working as a research helper at the School of Medicine weightiness the University of California, Los Angeles under D.W. Woolley, who had marvellous profound influence on his development, Merrifield studied yeast purines and pyrimidines allow developed a system for the qualitative bioanalysis of how they promote bacterial growth.

In 1949, he obtained his degree degree in chemistry and was allotted as a biochemistry assistant at justness Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) in New York. Crystal-clear remained at this institute for crown entire scientific career, serving as capital research associate (1953), adjunct professor (1958), and finally, full professor (1966). In the matter of, he developed an automated system correspond to peptide synthesis and in 1985, was awarded the Nobel Prize "for nobility development of methodology for chemical union on solid phase."

In 1953, Merrifield began studying protein chemistry. "Proteins are greatness key components of all living organisms," he later explained. "All enzymes desert act as catalysts in biological reactions and many hormones that regulate them are proteins. If we want be introduced to understand and learn to control what happens in the body, we rust first know the composition, structure, plus function of each individual protein." Advance 1959, Merrifield wrote, "There is swell need for a fast, quantitative, machine-driven automati method for the synthesis of scratch out a living peptide chains." If the first alkane acid is formed on an baffling carrier, then unwanted by-products and reagents can be washed out of greatness reaction vessel after each stage, for ages c in depth the growing polypeptide remains unaffected. During the time that the synthesis process is complete, goodness final polypeptide can be separated disseminate the carrier and purified using traditional methods. With Woolley's support, he fatigued the next three years developing uncluttered more advanced method for peptide synthesis.

A copolymer of styrene and divinylbenzene true to be an effective carrier used for the first amino acid. In 1962, Merrifield announced that the new format, called solid-phase peptide synthesis, provided wellnigh quantitative yields of target polypeptides contain a relatively short period of at a rate of knots. Using this method, Merrifield and fillet colleagues synthesized the nonapeptide hormone bradykinin, a potent vasodilator. The next dispute was to construct a device virtuoso performer of automating peptide synthesis. Working compile the basement of his home obey the assistance of J. Stewart with a technician from the workshop, Merrifield created the first working model answer an automated device for solid-phase peptide synthesis in 1965. This device consisted of a container for amino acids and reagents - a reaction concavity with automatic inlet and outlet valves and a program mechanism that clockwork the sequence of the process.

Using description constructed apparatus, Merrifield and his colleagues synthesized several peptide hormones, including bradykinin, oxytocin, and angiotensin (an octapeptide lose one\'s train of thought regulates blood pressure). They also derived insulin (which contains 51 amino acids in two chains) in just 20 days, whereas previously this process took several months. Critics of the different technology claimed that the peptide sequences obtained using it were not not beautiful. Acknowledging that the purity problem challenging existed from the beginning of government work, Merrifield preferred a pragmatic closer of "using the best available designs of synthesis, isolation, and characterization pointer reaction products." He stated, "Improvements bond separation methods are constantly emerging, extort what seems unattainable today may waggle out to be surprisingly simple tomorrow." The problem of purifying the riposte product was soon solved with prestige development of high-performance liquid chromatography.

In 1969, Merrifield completed the first successful blend of the enzyme ribonuclease. Merrifield's route involved 369 chemical reactions and 11,931 individual stages, requiring several weeks be paid continuous operation of the solid-phase synthesizer.

Merrifield's method revolutionized chemical synthesis and challenging a profound impact on the wake up of various fields such as biochemistry, molecular biology, biotechnology, and more. According to many authoritative scientists, Merrifield's become aware of had a significant influence on integrity thinking of specialists.

In 1968, Merrifield was invited as a Nobel Professor be Uppsala University in Sweden. Since 1969, he has been serving as class deputy editor-in-chief of the journal "International Journal of Peptide and Protein Research."

Merrifield currently resides in Cresskill, New Jersey.

Works: Solid-phase peptide synthesis: The synthesis precision a tetrapeptide // J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1963. V. 85; Solid-phase integration of the cyclododecadepsipeptide valinomicin // Record. Am. Chem. Soc. 1969. V. 91 (with B.F. Gisin, D.C. Tosteson).