The R. Bruce Merrifield Award
From 1977 to 1995, this was The Alan E. Pierce Award, sponsored by the Pierce Chemical Company. The Merrifield Award was established in 1997 by an endowment from Rao Makineni. The Merrifield Award, presented at the biennial symposia, recognizes the lifetime achievement of a peptide scientist, whose work exemplifies the highest level of scientific creativity.
The R. Bruce Merrifield Award Recipients
| 2023 | Sam Gellman | University of Wisconsin - Madison |
| 2021 | Padmanabhan Balaram | Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India |
| 2019 | Lila Gierasch | University of Massachusetts at Amherst |
| 2017 | Charles Deber | University of Toronto, Hospital for Sick Children |
| 2017 | Robert Hodges | University of Colorado at Denver |
| 2015 | Horst Kessler | TU München Institute for Advanced Study |
| 2013 | James P. Tam | Nanyang Technological University, Singapore |
| 2011 | Richard DiMarchi | Indiana University |
| 2009 | Stephen B.H. Kent | University of Chicago |
| 2007 | Isabella Karle | Naval Research Laboratory |
| 2005 | Richard A. Houghten | Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies |
| 2005 | William F. DeGrado | University of Pennsylvania |
| 2001 | Garland R. Marshall | Washington University Medical School, St. Louis |
| 1999 | Daniel H. Rich | University of Wisconsin, Madison |
| 1997 | Shumpei Sakakibara | Peptide Institute, Inc. |
| 1995 | John M. Stewart | University of Colorado at Denver |
| 1993 | Victor J. Hruby | University of Arizona |
| 1991 | Daniel F. Veber | Merck, Sharp & Dohme |
| 1989 | Murray Goodman | University of California at San Diego |
| 1987 | Cho Hao Li | University of California at San Francisco |
| 1985 | Robert Schwyzer | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology |
| 1983 | Ralph F. Hirschmann | Merck, Sharp & Dohme |
| 1981 | Klaus Hofmann | University of Pittsburgh - School of Medicine |
| 1979 | Bruce Merrifield | The Rockefeller University |
| 1977 | Miklos Bodanszky | Case Western Reserve University |
Robert Bruce Merrifield, July 15, 1921 — May 14, 2006, was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984 for the invention of solid phase peptide synthesis. His wife Elizabeth, Libby, a biologist by training, joined the Merrifield laboratory at Rockefeller University where she worked for over 23 years.