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Richard Laurence Millington Synge FRS was a British biochemist, and shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography with Archer Martin.
He was a close friend of John H. Humphrey. Educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent his entire career in research, at locations including Wool Industries Research Association, Leeds, Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine, London, Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, and Food Research Institute, Norwich.
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 revolutionized 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 for which his candidature citation read:
Distinguished as a biochemist. Was the first to show the possibility of using counter-current liquid-liquid extraction in the separation of N-acetylamino acids. In collaboration with A.J.P. Martin this led to the development of partition chromatography, which they have applied with conspicuous success in problems related to the composition and structure of proteins, particularly wool keratin. Synge's recent work on the composition and structure of gramicidins is outstanding and illustrates vividly the great advances in technique for which he and Martin are responsible.
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