The Biochemistry departmental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Center at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health houses a Bruker WM-300 NMR spectrometer with a wide bore magnet (89mm) that primarily serves the research and teaching needs for the faculty of the School. The Center was established in 1980 with the support of an NIH grant award (GM 27512) for the spectrometer. Initially, the utilization of spectrometer time at the Center was over 80%. Although the spectrometer is still in operative condition, without prolonged down-time, the utilization of Spectrometer time has dropped to about 50% in recent years. This is because the ASPECT 3000 microcomputer, peripheral devices, probeheads, and electronic parts of the spectrometer are rapidly becoming obsolete. Over the past ten years, the Center has served more that 40 researchers in 20 laboratories at both academic and industrial institutes. Since 1984, at least 40 papers have been published with the aid of the Center. Recently, demands for the use of the NMR facilities have increased dramatically, and obviously the present instrument is becoming increasingly limited in its ability to perform many sophisticated applications. It would be desirable that the facilities be updated. To optimize the use of our limited resources, we propose to trade in the present WM system for a Bruker AM-X console and two probeheads while keeping the existing 7.05 T wide-bore magnet. Such an update would increase the capacity, sensitivity, and ability to perform the most advanced NMR experiments. It is projected that the modernized facilities will be used by at lease 13 investigators, including current and new users and their pre- and postdoctoral, students. It is critical that this instrumentation be acquired in order for the investigators to maintain a competitive research position. All except one of the users are funded by NIH.
