Research Facilities in Biological NMR
The ‘control room’ from which the 800 and 600 spectrometers are run. The spectrometers are on the right of this room, while offices for NMR personnel are on the left. All of this area was converted from offices and opened in summer 2004.
NMR SpectrometersThe NMR suite consists of 4 NMR spectrometers. They are all made by Bruker, and are controlled identically. We have two 500 MHz spectrometers, imaginatively named mag1 and mag2. Mag2 has a cryoprobe, to increase sensitivity about 4-fold.
[left]: spectrometer mag1, in a small pit[right]: spectrometer mag2 plus cryoprobe We also have a 600 (mag3), which again has a cryoprobe, and finally an 800 (mag4). Mag2 and mag3 are shielded. All the spectrometers are located together in a basement area, which has temperature control to within 0.5 C. Mag4 is in a deep (5.1 m) pit to isolate it from the surrounding area. The spectrometers are fed compressed air and nitrogen from a dedicated facility.
[left]: spectrometer mag3 plus cryoprobe[right]: spectrometer mag4 in its pit. The aluminium staging is approximately halfway down the pit. Note the orange breathing apparatus in case of emergency.
Wet labsWe have a small wet lab next to the control room, for preparing NMR samples, with a fridge, pH meter etc. We have a much larger lab on the ground floor, equipped with a shaker incubator, HPLC and chromatography columns, PAGE apparatus, UV specs, -80 freezer, fridge/freezers, and bench space for molecular biology, cell growth and transformation, and protein purification.
Other equipmentAdjacent to the larger wet lab, we have an equipment room containing UV/vis spec, fluorimeter, CD and stopped-flow apparatus.
Office and computingAdjacent to the control room is a large air-conditioned office area (with meeting/coffee room) for staff and students, containing a cluster of linked linux machines, Silicon Graphics, PCs and printers running Felix for NMR data processing. Funded : through grants from JIF, SRIF, The Wellcome Trust, BBSRC and MRC. |