PFI-TT: Device for High-throughput Parallel Measurement in NMR Spectroscopy

这项创新技术转化伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是推动一种新的高通量化学分析系统，用于药物发现等应用。核磁共振（NMR）光谱学是一种非侵入性技术，可以提供未知化学物质的结构数据，识别混合物的组成，并监测化学反应。由于内部的强磁铁的技术限制，传统的设备价格昂贵，占地面积大。该项目提出了一种解决这些限制的新设备。该项目开发了一个用户友好的，高度负担得起的系统，吞吐量是当前设备的50-100倍。该项目旨在通过开发一种同时对多个样品进行核磁共振光谱分析的系统来克服化学分析中长期存在的挑战，其吞吐量比现有系统高许多倍。提出的零至超低场核磁共振（ZULF-NMR）光谱是在台式尺度的磁屏蔽空间内进行的。该系统将通过其快速化学测量能力帮助机器人化学系统的发展，这将为自动化机器人的机器学习模型提供急需的数据。它将适用于不透明或金属容器中的样品，这是传统NMR无法容纳的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to advance a new high-throughput chemical analysis system for applications such as pharmaceutical drug discovery. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a non-invasive technique that provides data on the structure of unknown chemicals, identifies the composition of mixtures, and monitors chemical reactions. Traditional devices are expensive and occupy large footprints due to the technological limitations of the strong magnets within. This project advances a new device addressing these limitations. This project develops a user-friendly, highly affordable system with throughput 50-100 times that of current devices.The proposed project aims to overcome a longstanding challenge in chemical analysis by developing a system which performs NMR spectroscopy on multiple samples simultaneously, with throughput many times greater than that of existing systems. The proposed zero-to-ultralow field NMR (ZULF-NMR) spectroscopy is performed inside benchtop-scale magnetically shielded spaces. This system will aid the development of robotic chemistry systems through its rapid chemical measurement capabilities, which will supply much-needed data to the machine learning models that automate the robots. It will work for samples in opaque or metallic containers, which traditional NMR cannot accommodate.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.