LRB - Laboratorio de RMN de Barcelona
The LRB is integrated in the NMR Facility of the Scientific and Technological Centers of the University of Barcelona (CCiTUB). The Centers offer complementary techniques to support research and innovation in the areas of biological science, chemistry and materials science, for public and private researchers. The CCiTUB holds a node of the Spanish Electron Microscopy Unit Applied to Materials (ELECMI) distributed ICTS.
The NMR instrumentation at the University of Barcelona includes 10 spectrometers between 400 MHz and 800 MHz. Some of the instruments are equipped with cryoprobes and/or sample changers, offering optimal sensitivity and high throughput access enabling a wide range of applications: structural characterization of small compounds and large biomolecules, protein dynamics, protein-ligand interactions, drug quality control, quantification of complex products and impurities, or studies in the foodomics area. Industrial companies have an important share in the use of the Facility and, for some of them, NMR represents an strategic tool.
Currently, LRB offers competitive acces to the high-field instrumentation – one 800 MHz and one 600 MHz - of the NMR facility. Located in a 722 m2 space at the Barcelona Science Park Cluster building -especially designed to house high-field NMR spectrometers-, the high-field NMR facility has been in operation since 2000.
The expertise of the LRB is focused in the study of dynamic biomolecular systems. The main areas in which the LRB is active include:
(i) the characterization of intrinsically disordered regions, which are present in two thirds of eukaryotic proteins and represent one of the current challenges to study regulation-related diseases
(ii) drug design, targeting both disordered and globular proteins, another area leveraging the power of NMR to study dynamic systems
(iii) in vivo NMR -of disordered proteins or of soluble metabolites- exploiting the non-invasive character of the technique and its capacity to observe the simultaneous time evolution of the concentrations of multiple species in living systems.
Instrumentation at the LRB
Bruker 800 MHz pumped magnet, Avance NEO spectrometer:
4 channels
Probeheads:
• 5 mm TCI cryoprobe (1H,13C,15N), Z-gradient
• 5 mm TXI room temp probe (1H,13C,15N), X,Y,Z-gradients
Bruker 600 MHz ultrashield magnet, Avance III spectrometer:
4 channels
Probeheads:
• 5 mm TCI cryoprobe (1H,13C,15N), Z-gradient
• 5 mm TXI room temp probe (1H,13C,15N), X,Y,Z-gradients
Bruker Smart Nitrogen Liquefier (BSNL)