Marshall Warren Nirenberg was born in New York City on April 10th, 1927, the son of Harry and Minerva Nirenberg. The family moved to Orlando, Florida in 1939. He early developed an interest in biology. In 1948 he received a B. Sc. degree, and in 1952, a M. Sc. degree in Zoology from the University of Florida at Gainesville. His dissertation for the Master's thesis was an ecological and taxonomic study of caddis flies (Trichoptera).