NMR spectrometer product of major magnet move

17 Jun 2002

During a three-hour window at daybreak, a dual-engine Sikorsky freight helicopter made a short trip from University of Maryland Baltimore County's parking Lot 1 to just above the Chemistry/Physics Building near the center of campus.

Its cargo? An 800 megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, which includes a 9,600 pound magnet about the size of an elevator car.

According to says UMBC Chemistry Professor Michael Summers, the NMR spectrometer is similar to a supercharged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instrument that uses a magnetic field to excite hydrogen atoms found in most biological substances. But instead of displaying a torn muscle or a tumor, an NMR spectrometer looks at the very smallest elements of a substance, the atoms, to determine the structures of molecules.

Using NMR spectroscopy, Summers and his team of UMBC undergraduate and graduate students have solved the molecular structure for three of six HIV-1 proteins that have been structurally characterized to date. The new spectrometer will extend their work on HIV and hopefully give researchers a molecular map to design drugs that can prevent or combat it.