Enhancing 800 MHz NMR Capabilities at Nottingham

来自英国各地的核磁共振波谱学家正在努力建立一个协调的战略，以提供世界级的核磁共振基础设施。建立一个连接的设施网络将为全英国提供物理和生命科学核磁共振技术的最新能力、培训和专业知识。在这里，我们展示了诺丁汉大学的拟议投资将如何为国家努力做出贡献，促进区域合作，并为中部地区的研究人员提供设施。我们致力于在英国核磁共振学界和工业界全面整合，并与资助机构合作，建立可持续的网络和资助机制，并分享最佳实践。核磁共振是研究新材料分子组成、结构和性质以及实时监测过程和反应的关键分析技术。在物理科学、工程、生物科学和医学的所有关键接口上，没有其他技术可以为跨学科研究人员提供如此多功能性和广泛的潜在应用。目前，围绕我们的高场核磁共振设施的协作开放访问框架包含了所有这些学科，并在公共利益领域产生了广泛的影响，例如，围绕食品安全和食品营养；为日常设备和能源存储开发新的可持续材料和工艺；研究基础生物科学，以了解人类健康的各个方面；化学生物学与从自闭症到神经退化和中风等领域的药物发现有关；新型生物催化剂的发展与工业生物技术和我们可持续的未来有关。诺丁汉设施已经在支持这一令人难以置信的广泛活动，这次拟议的升级将延长寿命，灵敏度和能力到一个新的水平，继续支持诺丁汉，从而支持英国的国际研究竞争力。通过升级800 MHz高场核磁共振设备，我们将提供我们广泛的用户群，跨越物理和生命科学，用核磁共振基础设施来解决无数的问题，让诺丁汉的研究人员保持竞争力，并在关键研究领域处于领先地位，使我们能够将活动的广度扩展到新的领域，吸引新的合作，并最大限度地扩大我们研究的广泛影响。这次升级，以及针对不同应用的新探针套件，将使我们能够解决以前超出我们当前能力范围的关键研究问题。值得注意的是，拟议的升级适应了新的能力，现在可以以高分辨率和高灵敏度研究固体材料，而以前只能在低场（600 MHz仪器）的低灵敏度和更有限的能力上进行研究。这套仪器提供了一个多样化的多功能设施，用于在单个设施中综合表征大分子和小分子，溶液和固体。所要求的光谱仪升级将：(i)确保目前的800 MHz磁体在该场强下具有目前可能的最高性能，（ii）将开辟以前无法进入的研究领域，特别是在固体材料研究方面，（iii）为英国核磁共振设施网络增加新的容量和能力，并为米德兰高等教育机构和工业界的研究人员提供本地和区域访问。（iii）为RCUK物理和生命科学优先领域的广泛研究项目提供前所未有的多功能性支持；（iv）在国际领先期刊上发表高质量的出版物；(v)支持诺丁汉和英国的国际研究竞争力。

NMR spectroscopists from across the UK are working towards the establishment of a co-ordinated strategy for provision of world-class NMR infrastructure. Establishing a linked network of facilities will provide for UK-wide access to new state-of-the-art capabilities, training and expertise in NMR technologies for the physical and life sciences. Here we demonstrate how the proposed investment at the University of Nottingham will contribute to the national effort and promote regional collaborations and access to the facilities to researchers across the Midlands. We are committed to being fully integrated within the UK NMR community across academia and industry and to engage with funding agencies to establish a sustainable network and funding mechanisms, and to share best practice.NMR is a key analytical technique for studying the molecular composition, structure and properties of novel materials and real-time monitoring of processes and reactions. There are no other techniques which offer such versatility and breadth of potential applications to interdisciplinary researchers at all of the key interfaces across the physical sciences, engineering, biosciences and medicine. The current collaborative open-access framework around our high-field NMR facility embraces all of these disciplines and impacts widely in areas of public interest, for example, around food security and food nutrition; the development of new sustainable materials and processes for every day devices and for energy storage; studies of fundamental bioscience for understanding of aspects of human health; chemical biology linked to drug-discovery in areas from autism to neurodegeneration and stroke; development of novel biocatalysts linked to industrial biotechnology and our sustainable future. The Nottingham Facility is already supporting this incredible breadth of activity, and this proposed upgrade will extend the lifetime, sensitivity and capabilities to the next level, to continue to support Nottingham's, and hence the UK's, international research competitiveness.By upgrading the 800 MHz high-field NMR facility we will provide our broad user base, which reaches across the physical and life sciences, with the NMR infrastructure to address a myriad of questions, to allow researchers at Nottingham to remain competitive and at the cutting edge in key research areas, allow us to extend the breadth of our activities into new areas and draw in new collaborations, and maximise the wider impact of our research. The upgrade, and suite of new probes for different applications, will allow key research questions to be addressed that were previously out of range of our current capabilities. Significantly, the proposed upgrade accommodates new capabilities to now study solid-materials at high resolution and sensitivity where previously this was only possible on a lower-field (600 MHz instrument) of lower-sensitivity and more limited capabilities.This suite of instrumentation presents a diverse multi-functional facility for the integrated characterisation of both large and small molecules, solutions and solids, in a single facility. The requested spectrometer upgrade will: (i) ensure that the current 800 MHz magnet has the highest performance currently possible at this field strength, (ii) will open up previously inaccessible areas of research particularly in the study of solid materials, (iii) add new capacity and capabilities to the network of UK NMR facilities and provide local and regional access to researchers across the Midland HEIs and Industry, (iii) provide unprecedented versatility to support a wide range of research projects across the RCUK physical and life science priority areas, (iv) contribute to high quality publications in internationally leading journals, (v) support the international research competitiveness of Nottingham and the UK.