Remote NMR (R-NMR)
Moving NMR infrastructures to remote access capabilities
NMR, remote acces, sample shipment, CO2-monitoring, data archiving, remote teaching
Abstract
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) is one of the major analytical methods applied in all chemical, physical, biological, and medical sciences.
NMR’s leading role stems from its analytical power in terms of molecular resolution, quantification,
reproducibility, and broad application envelope. It requires sophisticated and expensive equipment, operated by scientists with diverse background ranging from service-oriented researchers to highly trained experts. The aggregated capital investment in European NMR facilities, operating at local, national, and European level, exceeds 500 Million Euro. The NMR community maintains excellent networking between sites and serves a broad community within the focal points of European research interests.
With the application Remote-NMR (R-NMR), we wish to establish remote access for all NMR users throughout Europe. While routine NMR applications are routine in every university and in industry, more specialized applications are performed in dedicated research infrastructures offering access and help to local and outside users.
During the pandemic, NMR infrastructures slowed down their operations to variable degrees, and particularly access by remote users dropped significantly, raising the need to establish standardized procedures for remote access to improve their resilience to adverse external factors.
Objectives
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a standard analytical method indispensable in Chemistry,
Biochemistry, Physics, Material sciences, Geology and Medicine.
It serves as the gold standard for the quality control of chemical compounds, (polymeric) materials, and biological molecules including proteins, DNA and RNA. NMR spectrometers are not only installed in all Universities throughout Europe but also in all chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Both in academia and in industries, access to NMR equipment is centrally organized in infrastructural units (infrastructures) due to the high costs of capital investments, the level of specialization needed to exploit all aspects in NMR and technical expertise required to maintain and improve the capabilities of NMR. These physical infrastructures differ widely in terms of their instrumentation and user base, but centralized walk-in access to these facilities is the common standard.
Overview of distribution of partners through Europe. Number of spectrometers and research areas are given according to the symbols, national consortia including several facilities are indicated by a * behind the number.
Figure summarizes the broad distribution of participating infrastructures throughout Europe, the available equipment and the communities that they serve. NMR measurements implement a plethora of different experimental schemes conducted on physical samples. These measurements generate a couple of Gigabyte raw data each, which need to be archived, made available, and analysed, using computational software and hardware.
The infrastructures in R-NMR share essentially the same technological platforms (NMR spectrometers) but cover a very wide range of research fields and application domains, and serve a wide range of different research communities. It is important to highlight that only sharing the same platform makes the development of common good practices and strategies feasible.
News & Events
Publications, Comunication & dissemination activities, upcoming events, NMR news, meetings.
Remote-NMR User Survey Launched
A second survey of the NMR community, aimed at NMR users, was launched on January 8th. The purpose of this survey is to collect data about experiences with remote access to NMR spectrometers from the perspective of the hands-on users of the spectrometers. This follows on from the earlier survey of NMR facility managers; a […]
Remote-NMR (R-NMR): Moving NMR infrastructures to remote access capabilities
Prior to the Covid19 pandemic, the overwhelming majority of NMR data collection was carried out in person at the NMR facility. Due to the lockdown restrictions in many countries during 2020-2021, this access mode had to adapt to allow NMR scientists to continue to collect NMR data. Experiences at many NMR facilities across Europe during […]
R-NMR experts will participate at the eRImote-Workshops on September 21-22
R-NMR experts will participate at the eRImote-Workshops on September 21-22. This workshop will explore remote training for RI users & staff as well as the impact of remote/digital service provision on user interaction and networking.
Our First Deliverable is submitted
Our First Deliverable is submitted… well begun is half done!
Remote-NMR Co-Coordinator
Remote-NMR Co-Coordinator, participated to the eRImote kick-Off. eRImote is our sister project and we look forward to interact and coordinate our activities!
The Remote-NMR project kick-off
At the Online event participated representatives of all partners. We greatly appreciated the participation of representatives of the eRImote consortium. We also thanks Jimena Arango, Project Officer European Executive Research Agency for providing precious suggestions for project implementation!