Roderick Murray was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, and reared in Scotland and South Africa. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry and physics from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He earned a master's degree in organic chemistry from the University of South Africa and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School, having come to the United States in 1937. During World War II, he served for five years in the South Pacific as an infectious disease control specialist in an Army medical laboratory.
Dr. Murray came to the NIH in 1947 as a commissioned Public Health Services (PHS) officer in the Laboratory of Biologics Controls, which later became the Division of Biological Standards (DBS). He was Director of DBS from 1955 to 1972. According to Dr. Ruth Kirschstein, this was not a position he wanted or for which he was particularly well-suited. He had been in the Army during World War II and built a reputable career studying hepatitis. He was a member of Commissioned Corps of the PHS, however, so, he did not have much say in taking the position or not.
