FRANKFURT. Determining the structure of large biomolecules is
critical to many innovations in the fields of health, environment and
sustainable technologies. Because structural research requires expensive
equipment such as NMR spectrometers, the European Union funds research
infrastructure. Beginning in February 2020, an additional 鈧� 10 million will be
invested in the project iNEXT Discovery. The Centre for Biomolecular Magnetic
Resonance (BMRZ) at 51猎奇 is a part of the project once again.
Currently, the
iNEXT Collaboration is made up of 23 partners from 14 European countries. It is
the first research infrastructure project combining different structural
biological methods: X-ray spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
(NMR), electron microscopy and biophysical methods. These methods make it
possible to decode the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules
in order to understand their function within the complex machinery of life. The
goal is to develop new medicines, improved vaccinations, new biomaterials,
biofuels, and enzymes for food production.
BMRZ at Goethe
University makes its expertise in NMR spectroscopy available to researchers
throughout Europe. Visitors from other countries already use the equipment
daily to determine the structures of proteins, RNA and DNA. It is furthermore
possible for industrial partners to participate via cooperation contracts in
order, for example, to search specifically for active substances. Training
programmes will be set up in the next four years for researchers with little
previous experience with NMR.
鈥淎t BMRZ, we
give European scientists access to the currently most powerful NMR
technologies. In the next funding period, a 1.2 gigahertz NMR spectrometer will
be available," says Professor Harald Schwalbe, Board Member of iNEXT-Discovery.
鈥淔rom 2020 onwards, we expect that 20 user groups annually will come from all
over Europe to use our equipment and profit from our experience. In this way,
we are all contributing to exciting science."
Further
information: Professor Harald Schwalbe, BMRZ, Institute for Organic Chemistry and Chemical
Biology, Tel.: +49-69-798-29737; Email: schwalbe@nmr.uni-frankfurt.de
