André d'Avignon, Director
Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1980. Application of NMR technology to problems in medicine, chemistry, and biology. Recent areas of NMR interest include a) studies of dynamics in coiled-coil leucine zippers, b) structural elucidation of small molecules through Overhauser enhancement, and c) screening methods for quality control analyses of biopharmaceuticals.
Office: McMillen 505
Phone: 314-935-4715
E-mail: davignon@wuchem.wustl.edu

Jeff Kao, Senior NMR Spectroscopist
Ph.D., University of Arizona, 1983. Development and application of modern two- and three-dimensional reverse-detected NMR spectroscopy to the studies of biomolecules, including conformational analysis of DNA, structure-activity relationship of biologically active peptides.
Office: McMillen 423
Phone: 314-935-6833
E-mail: kao@wuchem.wustl.edu

The Washington University High Resolution NMR Facility is located in Louderman 355 (314-935-6669), McMillen 308 and Lab Sciences 240 (314-935-9411). The Facility houses five modern multi-nuclear Varian spectrometers with field strengths from 7.05-14.1 Tesla. The spectrometers are equipped with Sun Microsystems computers and are networked to the Chemistry Computing Facility (CCF) for offline data archival and processing. The CCF supports NMR processing software provided by Varian and third party vendors.

Instrumentation

1. Varian Unity Inova-600
   • 5 rf channels with pulsed field gradient and waveform generators

   probes include:

   • 5 mm 3 axis gradient triple resonance
   • 3 mm gradient triple resonance
   • 5 mm reverse problem (¹⁵N-³¹P)
   • 5 mm broadband (¹⁵N-³¹P)
   • 5 and 10 mm ¹H imaging probes
2. Varian Unity Inova-500
   • 4 rf channels with pulsed field gradient and waveform generators

   probes include:

   • 5 mm gradient reverse probe
   • 5 mm Bio-quad gradient probe
   • 5 mm broadband probe (¹⁵N-³¹P)
   • 10 mm broadband probe (¹⁵N-³¹P)
3. Varian Unity Plus-300
   • 2 rf channels and pulsed field gradient waveform generators

   probes include:

   • 5 mm gradient broadband probe (¹⁵N-³¹P)
   • 5 mm gradient reverse probe (¹⁵N-³¹P)
   • 10 mm broadband probe (¹⁵N-³¹P)
4. Varian Mercury-300
   • 2 rf channels with pulsed field gradient
     • 5 mm gradient broadband probe (¹H, ¹⁹F, ¹³C, ³¹P)

5. Varian Inova-300

Services offered

• 24/7 access to NMR spectrometers and software
• Hands-on education in the use and application of NMR technology to assess spectral assignment, molecular dynamics and structure. Staff are generally available from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday-Friday for Facility users.
• implementation of traditional and newly developed NMR methods for use by user base
• collaborative research opportunities through Facility Staff
• Facility staff will provide NMR services (data interpretations, recommendations) for a fee to any person or organization.

Becoming a user

Any prospective NMR Facility users (student, private industry, government, etc.) should contact either Dr. Jeff Kao or Dr. André d'Avignon.

Academic Rate schedules

For Industrial User Rates, please contact the facility director.