Archer J. P. Martin

Archer J. P. Martin (1910-2002), British biochemist and Nobel Prize winner. Martin's greatest contributions to science were his development of paper chromatography and the pioneering use of chromatography to separate gases—breakthroughs that changed the way basic research in organic chemistry is conducted. For this work he shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in chemistry with British biochemist Richard Synge.

Martin was born in London, the son of a physician. He received his B.S. degree in biochemistry in 1932, and his Ph.D. degree in 1936 in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge. He then began work as a physical chemistry laboratory researcher at the university, studying how solid materials become liquid as they absorb moisture from the air. Afterward, while studying the composition of wool felting and amino acid analysis at Wool Industries Research Association Laboratory in Leeds, England (1938-1946), Martin came up with his idea of using porous paper to separate amino acids. Prior to his work in chromatography, researchers had been frustrated in their attempts to break proteins down into amino acids. While working at the Wool Industries lab, Martin met biochemist Richard Synge, and the two began collaborating on new methods of partition chromatography. In 1944 they came up with a paper-partition-chromatography technique that involved moving a substance across sheets of paper rather than through absorbent material in a glass laboratory tube, as had traditionally been done—an unprecedented method that resulted in the substance's proteins being easily separated into their base amino acids. This process for rapidly separating small amounts of complex biomolecule mixtures revolutionized analytical biochemistry. Martin and Synge's discoveries paved the way for great strides in molecular biology by other scientists—such as British chemist Frederick Sanger, who was able to break down and identify the amino acids in the insulin molecule, and American chemist Melvin Calvin, who used the technique in his work with photosynthesis.

Martin served on the Medical Research Council at the Lister Institute in Chelsea in 1948, and in 1952 worked at the National Institute of Medical Research in London. He became director of Abbotsbury Laboratories Limited in 1959. His professorships extended from Eindhoven Technological University in the Netherlands to the University of Houston in Texas and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.