Funds are requested from the Biomedical Research Support Shared Instrumentation Program for the purchase of a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer such as the Magnachem A-200 (200 MHz for protons). This instrument will replace a multinuclear Varian XL-100 instrument which has been the department workhorse NMR spectrometer over the past 12 years. The XL-100 was state-of-the-art in 1970, but now it not only does not match the performance of higher field instruments, but because of its age, some replacement parts are becoming difficult to locate. Although inherently inexpensive, the delays, technician time to locate parts, and resulting instrument down time are increasing to a level impeding our research. The new instrument constitutes a significant technical improvement over the XL-100 and will permit the rapid determination of spectra at moderately high field on a routine basis and with a welcome degree of user friendliness. The instrument will play an essential role in the day-to-day research programs of more than ten faculty research groups at the University of Oregon, many of whom are currently funded by NIH grants. Areas of research directly benefiting from acquisition of this new NMR spectrometer include synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry, the design, synthesis and application of a variety of biophysical probe molecules, the study of enzyme reaction mechanisms, and the study of the mechanisms of model enzyme reactions. All of these programs involve the synthesis of new organic molecules and NMR spectral analysis is the chief method of characterization of new substances for these programs.
