Photographs from the Papers of Robert Bruce Merrifield

Robert Bruce Merrifield was born on July 15, 1921. He attended the University of California at Los Angeles for both his bachelor's degree and doctorate, where he studied under professor of biochemistry M.S. Dunn. Upon his graduation in 1949, he married Elizabeth (Libby) Furlong, a biologist, and moved to New York City to work as a research assistant at the Rockefeller Institute (later Rockefeller University). Merrifield remained there for over forty years, becoming a professor and retiring with the title "John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor" in 1992. His wife Libby also joined the Merrifield laboratory at Rockefeller University after raising their six children. R. Bruce Merrifield worked on dinucleotide and peptide growth factors and his 1963 paper on what he called solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) became one of the most often-cited papers in scientific history. This work led to a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984. Merrifield received several awards and honorary degrees, and was elected a member of the U.S National Academy of Sciences. He died in Cresskill, New Jersey on May 14, 2006.