Enhancing 800 MHz NMR Capabilities at Nottingham

来自英国各地的核磁共振光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。建立一个相互关联的设施网络将使英国范围内能够获得物理和生命科学的核磁共振技术方面的新的最先进的能力、培训和专业知识。在这里，我们展示了诺丁汉大学拟议的投资将如何为国家努力做出贡献，并促进区域合作和中部地区研究人员使用设施的机会。我们致力于完全融入学术界和产业界的英国核磁共振社区，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。核磁共振是一种关键的分析技术，用于研究新材料的分子组成、结构和性能，并实时监控过程和反应。在物理科学、工程学、生物科学和医学的所有关键接口上，没有其他技术向跨学科研究人员提供如此多功能性和广泛的潜在应用。我们目前围绕高场核磁共振设施的协作开放获取框架涵盖了所有这些学科，并在公共利益领域产生了广泛影响，例如，围绕食品安全和食品营养；为日常生活设备和能源储存开发可持续的新材料和工艺；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行性疾病和中风等领域的药物发现相关联；与工业生物技术和我们的可持续未来相联系的新型生物催化剂的开发。诺丁汉设施已经在支持这种令人难以置信的活动广度，这次拟议的升级将把寿命、灵敏度和能力延长到下一个水平，继续支持诺丁汉的，从而支持英国的国际研究竞争力。通过升级800 MHz高场核磁共振设施，我们将为我们覆盖物理和生命科学的广泛用户群提供核磁共振基础设施，以解决无数问题，使诺丁汉的研究人员在关键研究领域保持竞争力和前沿，使我们能够将我们活动的广度扩展到新的领域，吸引新的合作，并最大限度地发挥我们研究的更广泛影响。这次升级，以及一套适用于不同应用的新探测器，将允许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，拟议的升级提供了新的能力，现在可以高分辨率和高灵敏度研究固体材料，而以前这只能在灵敏度更低、能力更有限的低场(600 MHz仪器)上实现。这套仪器提供了一个多样化的多功能设施，在一个设施中对大分子和小分子、溶液和固体进行综合表征。所要求的光谱仪升级将：(I)确保目前的800 MHz磁体在这种磁场强度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)增加英国核磁共振设施网络的新容量和能力，并为米德兰高等院校和工业的研究人员提供本地和区域访问，(Iii)提供前所未有的多功能性，以支持RCUK物理和生命科学优先领域的广泛研究项目，(Iv)在国际领先期刊上发表高质量出版物，(五)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.