Martin, Archer John Porter (1910-2002)

English biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1952 for work with Richard Synge on partition chromatography in 1944.

Martin was born in London and studied at Cambridge. He has held both commercial and academic research posts; he worked at the Wool Industries Research Association in Leeds 1938-46, at the National Institute for Medical Research 1952-59, was director of the Abbotsbury Laboratory 1959-70, and taught at the University of Sussex 1973-78.

Martin and Synge began the development of partition chromatography in 1941, for separating the components of complex mixtures. A drop of the solution to be analysed is placed at one end of a strip of filter paper and allowed to dry. That end of the strip is then immersed in a solvent, which deposits the various components of the mixture as it permeates the strip of paper. The dried strip is sprayed with a reagent that produces a colour change with the components; Martin and Synge used ninhydrin to reveal the positions of amino acids. The developed strip is called a chromatogram.

In 1953, Martin began working on gas chromatography, which separates chemical vapours by differential adsorption on a porous solid.