The School of Pharmacy maintains a strong presence in the research areas of toxicology, enzyme mechanisms, molecular biology, membrane-active peptides, rational design of enzyme inhibitors, and new efforts are being focused in combinatorial chemistry and catalytic antibodies. All of these research areas have in common the generation and study of small molecules and thus they have a critical need for access to a routine NMR spectrometer. At present all routine NMR spectroscopy Is being conduced on an eight-year old General Electric QE-300 spectrometer operating at 300 MHz. The long term availability of this spectrometer is increasingly problematic. General Electric sold off its high resolution NMR spectrometer division to Bruker in 1992. While Bruker maintains a contractual obligation to support the instrument until 1999 the QE-300 has been essentially """"""""orphaned"""""""". There has been no new hardware or software development for any of the former GE instruments. Most crucial is that parts and circuit boards are limited to those on hand or what can be salvaged from dismantled instruments. Thus while the need for rapid access to a modern routine NMR spectrometer increases in the School, we face a crisis that the spectrometer we rely on to provide for those needs is no longer adequately supported by the manufacturer, is increasingly susceptible to catastrophic failure, and has become obsolete. We therefore request funds for the purchase of a Varian Mercury 400 MHz spectrometer to replace the QE-300.
