Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Welcome to the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facility at the Faculty of Biological Sciences and Astbury BioStructure Laboratory. In these pages you will find details of the equipment available and information about how to get training and book equipment. We have a range of state-of-the-art NMR equipment operating at fields of 600, 750 and 950 MHz. All three spectrometers are equipped with cryoprobes and have the latest-generation Bruker Avance III HD control electronics.

NMR has unique capabilities to study systems directly in solution, investigate dynamics, provide atomic resolution data on intrinsically unfolded, partially folded and transiently interacting biological macromolecules, and to screen for small molecule ligands. The focus of the NMR facility is on biomolecular NMR and there are projects in all the aforementioned areas. A major area is in protein-protein interactions and there are examples of large protein-protein complexes, protein interactions in signalling, complexes with intrinsically disordered partners and complex formation in the initiation of amyloid formation.

On our state-of-the-art 950 MHz spectrometer we have a 5mm TXO cryoprobe optimised for the direct detection of 15N and 13C providing impressive sensitivity for heteronuclear detection techniques, and a 3mm TCI cryoprobe for optimal mass sensitivity and samples at high ionic strength. The 750 MHz is equipped with a 5mm TCI cryoprobe for work with 15N and 13C,15N labelled proteins. The 600 MHz is equipped with quadruple resonance QCI-P cryoprobe with cold pre-amplifiers on 1H, 2H, 13C, 15N and 31P and is also capable of highly sensitive phosphorus experiments.

Our facilities are available to researchers from across the university, as well as external users from academia and industry.