PAYING TRIBUTE TO BRUCE MERRIFIELD

Abstract

MORE THAN 200 family members, friends, and former students and colleagues gathered at Rockefeller University on Nov. 13 to celebrate the scientific life and achievements of Nobel Laureate Robert Bruce Merrifield, who died in May at age 84 after a long illness (G&EN, May 29, page 8). During a symposium that was held as part of the event, Paul Nurse, president of Rockefeller University, and David Rockefeller, honorary chairman and life trustee of Rockefeller University, accepted an award, sponsored by the ACS Division of the History of Chemistry (HIST), for Merrifield's classic 1963 paper, titled Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis. I. The Synthesis of a Tetrapeptide ( J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1963 ,85, 2149) Merrifield is best known for the invention and development of solid-phase peptide synthesis, which revolutionized synthetic organic chemistry. His simple and ingenious idea reduced the time required for peptide synthesis from years to days and made many once-unthinkable syntheses possible. This research, done ...