Investigators from the University of Iowa College of Medicine and Department of Chemistry request support to purchase an electron spin resonance (ESR or EPR) spectrometer to replace obsolete instruments. The immediate need for the ESR instrument is to support research efforts of seven major users and seven minor users. The ESR instrument requested would be a state-of-the-art instrument consisting of a 10-inch water cooled electromagnet and 7 kW DC power supply, an X-brand, 90 dB microwave bridge, associated field and modulation controllers and several specialized microwave cavities. The instrument would include onboard digital data acquisition equipment including a 1 MHz data sampling rate and 20 Mb data storage so that analog spectra can be routinely digitized and stored for quantitative data analyses. The major research projects that would utilize the ESR instrument include studies in radiation biology, biochemistry, chemistry and cell biology. The studies discussed here would examine a wide variety of paramagnetic species including metals, free radicals, spin-trapped radicals and spin- labeled materials. Requests by minor users are evidence of continued growth of research interest in free radical biology. The instrument would be administered as a College of Medicine CORE facility, designed to be useful to a large number of investigators. It is anticipated that this facility will enable investigators to continue to make significant gains in understanding free radical associated diseases and in the basic science of paramagnetic species.
