Series 1: Personal and Biographical, 1939-1999

This series contains materials related to the personal life of Martin Rodbell. This series is divided into five subseries, containing biographical materials, writings by Rodbell, non-professional correspondence, documents related to Rodbell's forty year career with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other articles about Rodbell. Apart from an assortment of family letters, the series is surprisingly thin on Rodbell's early life and career. There is, however, a good deal of information about his activities during the 1980s and 1990s. These personal materials also give the researcher good information on Rodbell's numerous appointments, directorships, and organizational affiliations, which are further described in the professional affiliations series.

The first subseries contains biographical materials such as pages from Rodbell's 1939 diary (the original kept in box 26), curricula vitae, family information, and a 1998 memorial service booklet outlining his life. The second subseries features some of Rodbell's writings, including his Ph.D. dissertation, various poems (including his 1994 Nobel Prize poem), and a 1995 book chapter. The next subseries includes various personal correspondence from family, friends, and colleagues. Some of the authors of these materials are unidentified and the topics are clearly of a non-professional or social nature. As Rodbell was associated with the NIH (including the NIEHS), the fourth subseries chronicles some of his NIH appointments, programs, research projects, and laboratory activities. This subseries also contains some of Rodbell's personnel and budgetary materials. The final subseries is a brief collection of articles about Rodbell, featuring a scholarly article in Science about Rodbell's work with the regulators of G proteins.