With this award from the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program, Professor Xue-Long Sun from Cleveland State University and colleagues John Masnovi, Nolan Holland and Bin Su will acquire a 400 MHz NMR spectrometer. The award will enhance research training and education at all levels, especially in areas such as (a) development of chemically selective and biocompatible compounds for biomolecule, biomaterial and living cell modification and synthesis and evaluation of cell surface mimetic molecules for biological and biomedical research and applications, (b) synthesis and characterization of functional molecular building blocks for responsive materials, (c) design, synthesis and evaluation of aromatase inhibitors for hormone-dependent breast cancer, (d) polymerization initiators for synthetic biological materials and electrical conductors, (e) synthesis and evaluation of hydroximinosteroid derivatives as cytotoxic agents, (f) modulation of DNA base excision repair pathways through synthesis of methoxyamine-like compounds for materials and organic blocking of DNA apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites, (g) studies of PNAs for nucleic-acid detection, (h) calculation of NMR protection factors using molecular mechanics, and (i) study of polycyclic biochemical mechanisms for metal accumulation in plants.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is one of the most powerful tools available to chemists for the elucidation of the structure of molecules. It is used to identify unknown substances, to characterize specific arrangements of atoms within molecules, and to study the dynamics of interactions between molecules in solution. Access to state-of-the-art NMR spectrometers is essential to chemists who are carrying out frontier research. The results from these NMR studies will have an impact in synthetic organic/inorganic chemistry, materials chemistry and biochemistry. This instrument will be an integral part of teaching as well as research.
The awarded 400 MHz NMR instrument was ordered in November 2011 from Bruker BioSpin Corp. It is Bruker Avance III 400 Hz NMR spectrometer. The instrument was received at the end of August, 2012, installed in September and was operational from the end of September 2012. The major project outcomes are briefly summarized as below. First, since the instrument installed, both the PI (Xue-Long Sun) and co-PI (Bin Su), and other faculty members in the department have been able to initiate collaborative research with scientists at local institutes such as the Lerner Research Institute at Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Second, there has been consistently 16 regular users including faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, undergraduate students from five research groups (Dr. Holland, Dr. Masnovi, Dr. Su, Dr. Berdis, Dr. Sun) using NMR for independent researches in daily base. So far, totally 12 peer-reviewed papers have been published with the NMR data generated from the instrument. Third, two undergraduate lab courses (Organic Chemistry lab five sections and Physical Chemistry lab one section) using the NMR facility in spring and fall semester, one undergraduate lab courses (Organic Chemistry lab two sections) in summer semester, one graduate course (Pharmaceutical Analysis) in the fall semester using the NMR facility have been consistently opened at the Department of Chemistry, CSU. In addition, two NMR facility open houses to local high school students have been conducted in the past.
