Educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent his entire career in research, at locations including Wool Industries Research Association, Leeds (1941-1943), Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, London (1943-1948), Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen (1948-1967), and Food Research Institute, Norwich (1967-1976).
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.
RichardLaurenceMillingtonSynge was born on October 28, 1914, in Liverpool, England, to LaurenceMillingtonSynge, a stockbroker, and Katherine Charlotte (Swan) Synge.
Synge was able to join Martin there in 1939, when he received a scholarship from the International Wool Secretariat for his work on amino acids in wool.
Synge and Martin had made early progress on partition chromatography during their time at Cambridge, but the need by industry and medicine for a more reliable technique spurred further research.
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