HIGH RESOLUTION NMR AND X-RAY CRYSTALLOGRAPHY SHARED RESOURCE Lorena Beese, Ph.D., and Leonard Spicer, Ph.D., Directors OVERVIEW The High Resolution NMR and X-ray Crystallography Shared Resource is designed to provide access to and technical support for state-of-the-art instrumentation essential for modern magnetic resonance spectroscopy and macromolecular crystallography. The resource is located on the ground floor of one wing of the recently built Levine Science Research Center and is conveniently accessible to members of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center from all units at Duke. The space was designed to house these facilities and provides an environment which encourages interaction among investigators due to proximity of individual instruments and common areas for seminars and informal gatherings as well as space for off line data processing. This Resource has three full time PhD level experienced staff members who are expert in NMR and X-ray techniques to train and assist users in both the fundamentals of these powerful technologies and also modern, advanced applications and methods. Websites have been established to provide information about the facilities and scientists in the resource and to encourage use of the resource. Through the organization and design of this integrated resource, we have assembled a team of experienced scientists to work closely with Cancer Center programs and projects to bring the full complement of NMR and X-ray approaches to bear on frontier research. Substantial effort and resources have been dedicated to enlarge and enhance the resource over the past five years in order to stay current with advancing technology. Over $3M in federal, private, and institutional funds have been spent for new equipment and upgrades for the Resource. New initiatives include full participation as a charter member of the recently constructed and commissioned Southeast Regional Collaborative Access Team (SER-CAT) crystallography station at the Advanced Photron Source at Argonne National Laboratory. This premier facility provides regular access to one of the worlds best synchrotron sources for X-ray crystallography. In addition, the NMR Center has been designated a node of the NIH supported 900 MHz NMR instrument resource to be installed at the University of Georgia. This provides access for Duke investigators to an NMR instrument operating at the highest field currently available commercially and one of the few such spectrometers in the world. The focus of the Duke collaboration with the University of Georgia is in developing and evaluating methods for studying large macromolecular complexes - an area of particular importance in NMR structural studies of cancer related biomolecular systems. Considerable momentum has been established with this resource over the recent years, and we have every expectation that it will continue to grow and provide outstanding benefit to cancer research at Duke. The resource is indispensable for the Cancer Center program in Structural and Chemical Biology. In addition, members of nine other programs routinely use the instrumentation in this resource or depend on data collected there. We have every expectation that use by Cancer Center members will continue to grow and are always looking forward to anticipate the needs associated with research projects within the Cancer Center.
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