UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Grant: $469,164 - National Science Foundation - Sep. 10, 2009
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Award Description: With support from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities: Multiuser program (CRIF:MU), the Departments of Chemistry at the University of Southern California (USC) and California State University - Fullerton (CSUF) will collaborate on the acquisition and remote control cyber enabling of a 400 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer to be housed at USC. It will be employed in a wide variety of research projects, supporting structural, reaction, and analytical studies such as 1) new synthetic routes to inorganic nanocrystals; 2) the development of new synthetic methods in organic and organometallic chemistry; 3) studies of biologically important organophosphorus compounds; 4) new synthetic methods and synthesis of bioactive molecules; and 5) the design of novel RNA binding peptides. Multinuclear NMR spectroscopy is a key analysis and characterization tool in chemistry today. The spectra enable researchers to track the progress of chemical reactions, identify unknown substances and provide information on the atomic arrangement and structures in species ranging from small molecules to large proteins by detecting transitions between energy levels arising from the nuclear spin properties of atoms. This instrument will support the education of future scientists at levels from undergraduate, to graduate student, to postdoctoral research associate. It will be used in lab courses for both chemistry and biochemistry students at USC and CSUF. Cyber infrastructure will be developed for both the remote control of the autosampler enabled instrument, as well as remote access for data collection/analysis from the instrument with a web based system. A practical NMR methods course will be developed jointly at USC and CSUF to train students in the use of the NMR spectrometer.
Project Description: This program involves the acquisition, installation and cyber enabling of a 400 MHz NMR at USC. > 90% of the funds are for the purchase of the equipment. This program involves a collaboration with Dr. Katherine Kantardjieff at California State University at Fullerton. She will be receiving one month of summer salary on this program, starting in the summer of 2010. Her strength ins cyber enabling instruments will be invaluable in getting this machine configured for easy remote access. The funds for this program have only arrived at USC in the last few weeks, so we have not made substantial progress on the project to date. In this upcoming quarter we plan to interview the three vendors for this type of instrument (JEOL, Varian and Bruker), chose a supplier and order the instrument. We identified a specific vendor (Varian) in our proposal and based our quote in their pricing. It is important to talk to all of the vendors again, as the technology moves fast and it is important to determine whose instrument is the best match to our needs and budget at this time. Once the instrument to be purchased has been identified we will renovate the space for this instrument. We hope to be installing the new instrument by the end of the next quarter.
Infrastructure Description: N/A
Jobs Summary: N/A (Total jobs reported: 0)
Project Status: Not Started
This award's data was last updated on Sep. 10, 2009. Help expand these official descriptions using the wiki below.
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