Archer Martin

Archer John Porter Martin (1910–2002) was a British chemist who developed partition chromatography with Richard Synge and shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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Richard Synge: Richard Laurence Millington Synge was a British biochemist who developed partition chromatography with Archer Martin. Martin and Synge jointly developed partition chromatography and shared the 1952 Nobel Prize.
Partition chromatography: A chromatographic method that separates compounds through their differing distributions between stationary and mobile phases. Martin and Synge introduced this method, using partition between liquid phases to separate molecules.
National Institute for Medical Research: A British biomedical research institute established in 1913 and later incorporated into the Francis Crick Institute. Martin and Synge conducted the research leading to partition chromatography at this institute.
1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Archer Martin and Richard Synge for their invention of partition chromatography. The award recognized the method Martin developed jointly with Synge.
Fred Sanger: Fred Sanger was a British biochemist who determined the amino-acid sequence of insulin and won two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. Sanger used partition chromatography in his landmark work on protein structure.
Paper chromatography: A planar chromatography technique in which a solvent carries compounds across paper at rates shaped by their interactions with the phases. Martin and Synge’s partition principle underlies the familiar paper-based separation technique.
Wool Research: Scientific investigation of wool’s chemistry, structure, processing, and properties. Martin’s early work on wool proteins helped direct his interest toward separating amino acids.
Protein sequencing: The determination of the linear order of amino acids in a protein. Chromatographic separation made the analysis of amino-acid mixtures central to early sequencing work.
William Astbury: William Astbury was a British physicist and molecular biologist who pioneered X-ray studies of biological molecules. Martin worked in Astbury’s laboratory before developing partition chromatography.
Gas chromatography: A separation method in which a carrier gas moves vaporized compounds through a column containing a stationary phase. Martin later helped develop gas-liquid chromatography, extending partition-based separation to volatile compounds.