In this application, we are requesting a shared nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer to be housed in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas. The four major and two minor faculty users will use the instrument to further their research in therapeutic drug formulation, delivery, and analysis. The work of three of the major users focuses on making peptides, peptide mimetics, and proteins into more useful drugs by improving their bioavailability and delivery either orally or in sustained release devices. The fourth user works on improving the stability of drugs and their solubility in water for oral or injectable formulations. These methods have potential applications in peptidomimetics that can be used as antihypertensive agents, HIV protease inhibitors, and delivery of anticancer agents. The requested instrument will be used to characterize the compounds being synthesized and determine, in some cases, their solution conformations. It will be managed and maintained by the University's core NMR facility, but located adjacent to the major users.
