The project involved the construction of a new instrument for NMR that can be inserted into an unmodified modern cryoprobe NMR spectrometer with full thermostatic control, sub-millisecond isothermal mixing, low transport time, and low sample volume.
Using computer aided engineering packages, we designed a new system that fitted all of these requirements. After some preliminary test systems, the fast-NMR device was completed in January 2021. We tested the system and affirmed the technical validity of the proof of concept and applied of the new device to a current problem in kinetics, demonstrating that is had a significant advance over prior techniques. These developments were reported in three high impact peer-reviewed publications.
Our fastNMR system provides access to a new time-scale of multi-mixing and the technique will be applied in fields as diverse as pharmaceutical discovery, agrochemical development, biochemistry and medicine. These have the potential to make substantial benefit to the economy, to science, and to society.
As a direct consequence of the project, we have begun collaboration with a group in Jena, on studies involves a series of 19F labelled inhibitors, as probes for key steps in trypanosomiasis – African sleeping sickness. This real-world challenge provides demonstration of the advances in rapid NMR kinetic instrumentation that the proof of concept funding has enabled.
We are currently making further developments, in collaboration with a commercial project partner.
