Bruce Merrifield

Bruce Merrifield received the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of solid-phase peptide synthesis, a method that allows amino acids to be assembled into peptides and proteins step by step while anchored to an insoluble polymer support. This technique revolutionized the field by enabling automated synthesis of molecules that were previously extremely laborious to construct.

In Merrifield's method, the first amino acid is attached to an insoluble polystyrene resin bead, and subsequent amino acids are added one at a time through cycles of coupling, washing, and deprotection. Because the growing peptide chain remains tethered to the solid support, excess reagents and byproducts can be removed simply by washing, dramatically simplifying purification.

Merrifield resin is a chloromethylated polystyrene cross-linked with divinylbenzene that serves as the solid support in Merrifield's original solid-phase peptide synthesis method. The first amino acid is attached to the resin via an ester linkage to the chloromethyl group, and the resin can be cleaved at the end of synthesis to release the finished peptide.

Merrifield conducted his Nobel Prize-winning research at Rockefeller University in New York City, where he spent virtually his entire career. He first demonstrated solid-phase peptide synthesis at Rockefeller in the early 1960s, and the technique was later commercialized into automated synthesizers used worldwide.