The WCAS NMR Facility at Northwestern is a NIH-funded university-wide shared resource dedicated for Structural Biology research. The Facility comprises a 600 MHz spectrometer, which is housed in the Analytical Services Laboratory (ASL) of the Department of Chemistry. The instrument was purchased in 1990 with funds generously provided by the Keck Foundation and the National Science Foundation. In 1999, the magnet was fully refurbished and the console upgraded to a state-of-the-art system using funds provided by the NIH and matching funds from the university. In 2005, the room temperature probe for the instrument is being replaced with a state-of-the-art cryogenically cooled probe through an SIG from the NIH.

The Facility is currently staffed with a full-time System Manager. Besides maintaining the instrument, the manager provides technical expertise and advice on aspects relating to NMR data acquisition, processing and analysis.

The Facility is also equipped with three SGI O2 and one LINUX workstations and an assortment of software and graphics visualization tools for NMR spectral processing and analysis. The workstations are also equipped with software and computing power for NMR structure determination of average-sized proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates.

A five-member Structural Biology NMR Committee comprising faculty from the chemistry and biochemistry departments is charged with the task of setting policy and providing oversight. Appointments to the committee are made by the Dean of WCAS. The committee is currently chaired by Dr. Richard Silverman (Chemistry) and includes Drs. Robert Lamb (Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology), Alfonso Mondragón (Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology), Amy Rosenzweig  (Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology and Chemistry ), and Ishwar Radhakrishnan (Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology). Users of the facility are encouraged to provide feedback to the NMR manager or to any member of the oversight committee.

[BMBCB][Chemistry Department][Northwestern University]