Richard Laurence Millington Synge

Richard Laurence Millington (R. L. M.) Synge FRS FRSE FRIC FRSC MRIA was a British biochemist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography with Archer Martin. Synge was born in West Kirby, the son of Lawrence Millington Synge and his wife, Katherine C. Swan. Synge was educated at the Old Hall School in Wellington, Shropshire, and at Winchester College, Winchester, Hampshire, England. He then studied Chemistry at Trinity College, Cambridge.

He spent his entire career in research, beginning at the Wool Industries Research Association, Leeds (1941–43); Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine, London (1943–48); Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen (1948–67); and Food Research Institute, Norwich (1967–76). It was during his time in Leeds that he worked with Archer Martin developing partition chromatography, a technique used in the separation mixtures of similar chemicals, that revolutionised analytical chemistry. Between 1942 and 1948 he studied peptides of the protein group gramicidin, work later used by Frederick Sanger in determining the structure of insulin.

In March 1950 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1963 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was for several years the treasurer of the Chemical Information Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and was an honorary Professor in Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich, England, from 1968-84. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science (ScD) from UEA in 1977, and an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Mathematics and Science at Uppsala University, Sweden, in 1980.

Source: Wikidata