Enhancing 800 MHz NMR Capabilities at Nottingham

来自英国各地的NMR光谱学家正在努力建立一个协调的战略，以提供世界一流的NMR基础设施。建立一个相互联系的设施网络将使英国范围内获得新的最先进的能力，培训和NMR技术的专业知识，用于物理和生命科学。在这里，我们展示了诺丁汉大学的拟议投资将如何有助于国家的努力，并促进区域合作和访问整个中部地区的研究人员的设施。我们致力于与英国NMR界的学术界和工业界充分融合，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。NMR是研究新型材料的分子组成，结构和性质以及实时监控过程和反应的关键分析技术。没有其他技术可以为跨学科研究人员在物理科学，工程，生物科学和医学的所有关键接口上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合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的影响，例如，围绕食品安全和食品营养;为日常设备和能源储存开发新的可持续材料和工艺;了解人类健康方面的基础生物科学研究;化学生物学与自闭症、神经变性和中风等领域的药物发现有关;新型生物催化剂的开发与工业生物技术和我们的可持续未来有关。诺丁汉实验室已经在支持这一令人难以置信的活动范围，此次升级计划将延长实验室的使用寿命、灵敏度和能力，使其更上一层楼，以继续支持诺丁汉乃至英国的国际研究竞争力。通过升级800 MHz高场NMR实验室，我们将为物理和生命科学领域提供广泛的用户基础，与核磁共振基础设施，以解决无数的问题，使研究人员在诺丁汉保持竞争力，并在关键研究领域的前沿，使我们能够扩大我们的活动的广度到新的领域，并在新的合作，并最大限度地扩大我们的研究更广泛的影响。此次升级以及针对不同应用的新探头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，现在研究固体材料在高分辨率和灵敏度，而以前这是唯一可能的低场（600 MHz仪器）的低灵敏度和更有限的能力。这套仪器提出了一个多样化的多功能设施的综合表征的大小分子，溶液和固体，在一个单一的设施。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NMR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）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）为国际领先期刊的高质量出版物做出贡献，（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.