A group of MSU administrators, state authorities and scientists had a first look at a new facility built on campus to house a cutting-edge nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, spectrometer on Thursday.
A dedication ceremony was held at MSU's Core Technology Alliance Biomolecular NMR Facility, a part of the Engineering Research Complex, to introduce the new instrument, which uses powerful magnets to help scientists determine the structures of large molecules and monitor the interactions of drugs and proteins - important applications for biological and medical research.
The 900-megahertz spectrometer, which arrived on campus in May, is part of the Michigan Center for Structural Biology, a group of shared instruments housed at facilities in the state and other parts of the Midwest, including MSU.
The spectrometer provides state-of-the-art speed and sensitivity, said Shelagh Ferguson-Miller, chairperson of MSU's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
It is one of only five such machines in the nation.
MSU's instrument is intended to be used by scientists at a number of institutions around the state, country and world, said J. Ian Gray, MSU's vice president for research and graduate studies.
The $5 million spectrometer was funded by the state through the Michigan Technology Tri-Corridor and the Dow Chemical Co.
Use of the instrument will be available for a fee to anyone who is interested, Gray said.
"We've got a lot of services (at MSU) that are underutilized," he said. "We have to optimize the use of this instrument.
"It's too valuable an instrument - not just from a cost perspective, but from a capability perspective."
The Core Technology Alliance, a state-funded collaboration between research institutions in Michigan, will help market the services available at the facility.
"I hope the demand for it is so great there will be a line a mile long," said George Vande Woude, president and chief executive officer of the alliance.
The facility that houses the spectrometer was specially constructed to minimize vibrations and control the room's temperature to within one degree. The instrument, which looks like a miniature barn silo, was installed in a room the size of a small gymnasium. There are no magnetic materials inside the room, and a raised platform allowing scientists access to the top of the spectrometer is made of fiberglass, to prevent disruption of the magnetic field.
For the past three months since the spectrometer's arrival, scientists at the facility have been building up and stabilizing the magnetic field, said Aizhuo Liu, director of the Biomolecular NMR Facility.
"The higher the field, the more difficult it is to get it stabilized," Liu said.
It will take another month or two to perform tests on the instrument before it can be used for experiments.
"If everything goes smoothly, we can open up the facility to public users (at that time)," Liu said.
