The objective of the project RELAX-MAX was to introduce high-resolution relaxometry as a new powerful analytical approach for industry. High-resolution relaxometry is an experimental approach developed during the ERC StG project 2F4BIODYN that originally aimed at investigating nanosecond motions in proteins. Some preliminary studies had demonstrated that high-resolution relaxometry was also extremely valuable to investigate different types of complex systems: complex fluids, which consist in the mixture of myriads of small and large molecules. Complex fluids are encountered in many fields of industry: chemistry and energy (from crude oil to reaction media), Pharma and medical diagnostics (biological fluids: saliva, urine, blood serum...). This project was conducted in collaboration with the instrumentation company Bruker.
We reached out to a few companies and demonstrated that useful and original information on complex fluids could be gained. In particular, we showed in diverse complex fluids, including blood serum and crude oil, that interactions of small molecules with macromolecules or aggregates could be investigated and quantified. In biological fluids, this method provides a new tool for the pharmaceutical industry, and opens the way to perform interactomics of weak metabolite-protein interactions, which has great potential in medical diagnostics.
