University of Maine NMR Management Plan

The Chemistry Department NMR Committee’s goal is to ensure the department’s NMR facility provides researchers with optimum NMR tools and resources. The NMR committee serves not only the Chemistry Department but also researchers from other departments on campus and off-campus research facilities such as Jackson Labs. The committee oversees two NMR staff members. A facility manager is in charge of maintenance, scheduling and basic training. An application manager provides advanced training, teaches a yearly NMR course and offers NMR research services to the on-campus and off-campus research community. The application manager’s goal is to encourage new users to utilize our NMR resources and instruct them on the best approaches for utilizing NMR in their research. Figure 1. illustrates this approach.

The Chemistry Department has maintained an NMR facility for over 23 years and is proud that our two NMR spectrometers have been kept in service for 14 and 23 years. Over 5000 spectra have been collected on these instruments. Unfortunately, both spectrometers are approaching the end of their useful life and both maintenance costs and downtime have increased dramatically. This seriously hampers our ability to carry out cutting edge research and to provide the best educational experience possible to our students.

We anticipate the proposed NMR spectrometer will have an operating lifetime of approximately 20 years. Clearly this is a worthwhile investment with long-term payback. We utilize the following well-established procedure for maintaining and operating NMRs well beyond their projected lifetimes. Our maintenance and operation process includes the following steps:

1. Maintain cryogen fill records along with repair records.

2. Users maintain a log book of use and instrument abnormalities.

3. Our fill schedule has a built-in safety factor for cryogen fills.

4. Boil-off rates are monitored and vacuum chambers are pumped down as needed.

5. We have two backup cryogen suppliers in case our primary supplier can not deliver on schedule.

6. Our staff is trained by Varian in both NMR hardware and NMR applications.

7. We participate in AMMRL and monitor problems other NMR facilities have and how they solved them.

8. Only users trained by our staff are allowed to use the NMRs.

Our NMR facility currently has a Varian 200 MHz NMR and a Varian 300 MHz NMR. The Chemistry Department and the University have employed an NMR Instrumentation Specialist for over 23 years and is strongly committed to maintaining this support. NMR staff training in maintenance, operation and applications will be an important factor in full utilization of the proposed NMR. Funds for transportation and training for two staff members by the manufacturer are included in this proposal. Our Instrumentation Specialist has degrees in Engineering Physics, and has a superb background in analog, digital and RF electronics, cryogens, vacuum systems, superconductors, and nuclear spin processes. Our NMR applications scientist has a PhD in biophysics and a strong background in advanced NMR techniques.

Our current NMR spectrometers are used for teaching and research. Scheduling for these NMRs (done via a web-based scheduling system) provides for short data acquisitions to be run from 8:00am until 4:00pm weekdays. Longer runs are conducted overnight and on weekends. Our current instrumentation website, http://icn2.umeche.maine.edu/instruments/nmr.html, describes our NMRs, their operational status and provides information to users inside and outside the department on instrument use. We actively promote new research on the NMRs by meeting with researchers and providing NMR topics in our classes. NMR topics are already taught in our Organic Chemistry classes and in our instrumentation course. Established training workshops are already available and are scheduled as needed throughout the year.

We will implement a modified scheduling policy for the requested high field NMR than we currently use on our existing NMRs. Most of the experiments that will be conducted on the high field NMR will be of longer duration due to the nature and type of research that is expected. It is not unusual for a high field NMR spectrometer to acquire a series of experiments on an expensive or rare sample that will require several days of continuous NMR time. Accommodation will be made on an as needed basis for shorter acquisition times.

We also are in the process of enhancing our NMR web site so that it describes past NMR research and illustrates how NMR can be utilized in various research fields. This site is part of our initiative to actively promote new research on the proposed NMR. Our plan involves offering a yearly NMR intensive course aimed at upper level undergraduates and first year graduate students. This course will begin in the Fall of 2007. Meetings with potential NMR users have been and will be set up to inform and guide new users on utilizing NMR in their research. The instrument will have three basic groups listed according to priority.

1. Chemistry Department researchers whose work is outlined elsewhere in this proposal.

2. Other University of Maine researchers. Examples are given elsewhere in this proposal.

3. Off-campus researchers from other Maine Universities, Jackson labs and Eastern Maine Hospital.

Consulting and training is and will be available to all researchers. Training includes basic instrument use and applications. Consulting on advanced NMR applications is available from our NMR applications manager. The applications manager is currently authoring a web site describing current NMR research activities and how NMR can be used in various fields. This web site along with NMR consulting and training services and an NMR course focused on applying NMR techniques in new fields will encourage and facilitate new users to utilize NMR in their research. The web site will also be useful to other NMR facilities attempting to draw in new users and fully utilize their NMR resources.