The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), in collaboration with other major Chicago and Chicago area research institutions, namely Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Loyola University, and the Medical College of Wisconsin, seek funds for purchase of a narrow bore 21Tesla (900MHz) NMR spectrometer and cryoprobe for carrying out, in solution, high resolution studies on proteins and protein complexes of biomedical importance that demand use of the highest available magnetic field strength. The spectrometer will be housed in a purpose-built, newly-constructed, freestanding structural biology instrumentation building on the Medical Center campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, located just west of downtown Chicago. The spectrometer, together with a cryoprobe-equipped 800MHz spectrometer that will be installed next year, will be operated as a shared resource for all NIH-funded Chicago area investigators working on biomedically important problems. This shared resource will permit a complete transformation of protein NMR work in Chicago, from isolated campus-based investigations at relatively low field, to an interactive community of top rate investigators with access to the best equipment available. Such synergy is also likely to have a positive effect on bringing about other inter-university collaborations between Chicago universities that have previously had a more competitive than collaborative relationship. An immediate example, that also illustrates the way in which this resource will serve the current and future national scientific needs, is the development of a UIC-University of Chicago-Northwestern Research Center of Excellence in bioterrorism-related research. NMR, including the resource described here, will play a key role in this Center and in related research. As part of the facility, a resource will be established for development of procedures for intein-based segmental isotopic labeling of proteins, as well as for production of segmentally labeled DNA and RNA species.
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