A Coordinated Infrastructure for NMR in the Physical and Life Sciences: A 1 GHz Spectrometer at Birmingham

伯明翰拥有并支持亨利·惠康生物分子核磁共振大楼(HWB-核磁共振)，该大楼自2004年以来一直为英国用户提供600、800和900 MHz的耐用、最先进的核磁共振服务。在惠康信托的支持下，该设施将70%的可用高场核磁共振时间免费提供给拥有高质量项目的外部用户，并配备了专家支持人员。HWB-核磁共振已经接待了来自英国各地实验室的50个研究小组，从而确保了英国在超高场核磁共振领域的领导地位，并经常成为欧盟接入网络的一部分。这一设施对英国核磁共振社区的受欢迎程度和重要性从最近的审查中得到了很好的证明，这些评论将其服务评为“英国至关重要的科学资源”和“一个明显被大量使用的优秀的国家设施”；惠康信托为2018-2023年期间的HWB-核磁共振业务提供了新的资金。HWB-核磁共振建议增加1 GHz光谱仪，这将为英国用户提供一系列独特的核磁共振仪器，涵盖600、800、900 MHz和1 GHz光谱仪，主要用于生物医学应用。通过在一个地点提供这些服务，并在研究委员会和惠康信托的共同支持下，将创建一个独特的资源，使英国核磁共振社区处于全国和国际核磁共振研究的前沿。伯明翰的具体服务将包括基于示踪剂的和实时新陈代谢，为此，我们将提供600、800 MHz和1 GHz的微型低温探头，以实现最终的质量灵敏度，并将开发促进这一系列研究的核磁共振方法。通过与莱斯特大学结构生物学研究(Geerten Vuister教授，被任命为联络访问教授)我们还将能够通过CCPN项目(由MRC资助)在核磁共振方法方面提供具体的专业知识，包括核磁共振脉冲序列和计算方面(由BBSRC资助)、药物发现和核磁共振软件开发(由MRC资助)。CCPN有28个国家和国际合作伙伴及其广泛的推广方案，1 GHz光谱仪将牢牢扎根于核磁共振社区。大学提供的研究支持将特别侧重于受益于HWB-NMR独特的核磁共振仪器范围的方法开发。伯明翰和莱斯特在非常先进的核磁共振技术方面的直接互动也旨在进一步加强他们在设备和专业知识共享方面的现有努力，最近在米德兰大学之间成功建立了一个共享的低温EM设施。核磁共振和EM技术共同促进了研究支持正常和异常细胞功能的分子机制的综合结构生物学方法的目标。

Birmingham houses and supports the Henry Wellcome Building for Biomolecular NMR (HWB-NMR), which since 2004 has provided a durable, state-of-the-art NMR service at 600, 800 and 900MHz for UK users. With support of the Wellcome Trust, the facility offers 70% of its available high-field NMR time free of charge to external users with high-quality projects and has expert support staff in place. HWB-NMR has hosted >50 research groups from laboratories across the UK, thus assuring UK leadership in ultra-high-field NMR and has regularly been part of EU access networks.The popularity and importance of this facility for the UK NMR community is well evidenced by recent reviews, which qualified its services as "the vital scientific resource in UK" and "an excellent national facility which is clearly heavily used"; the Wellcome Trust renewed funding of the HWB-NMR operations for the period 2018-2023.HWB-NMR proposes the addition of a 1GHz spectrometer, that will provide UK users with a unique line-up of NMR instruments covering 600, 800, 900MHz and 1GHz spectrometers, primarily for biomedical applications. By providing these services at one location, and with the combined support of research councils and the Wellcome Trust, a unique resource will be created that will put the UK NMR community at the forefront of NMR research, both nationally and internationally.Specific services in Birmingham will include tracer-based and real-time metabolism, for which we will offer access to micro-cryoprobes at 600, 800MHz and 1GHz for ultimate mass sensitivity and will develop NMR methods that facilitate this line of research.By forming a strategic alliance with the structural biology research at the University of Leicester (Prof Geerten Vuister, to be appointed as liaising visiting professor) we will also be able to offer specific expertise in NMR methodology, both in NMR pulse sequences and computational aspects (BBSRC funded), drug discovery and NMR software development via the CCPN project (MRC funded). With CCPNs 28 national and international partners and its extensive outreach programme, the 1GHz spectrometer will be firmly embedded in the NMR community. University-provided research support will particularly focus on methodology developments that benefit from the unique range of NMR instrumentation at HWB-NMR.The direct interactions between Birmingham and Leicester in highly advanced NMR technology also aim to further strengthen their existing efforts in equipment and expertise sharing, as exemplified by the recent successful establishment of a shared cryo-EM facility across the Midlands universities. Jointly, the NMR and EM techniques contribute to the goal of integrated structural biology approaches for studying the molecular mechanisms that underpin both normal and aberrant cellular functioning.