Structure and dynamics of bio-solids
Instruct has 3 centres offering Solid State NMR across Europe. Navigate the map and click on the pins to discover centres near you.
While solution NMR is already a well-established technique for the structural determination of biomolecules in solution, solid state (SS) NMR has experienced tremendous methodological and technical advancements over the last decade, and is reaching the status of a powerful technique for the mechanistic and structural investigation of biological solids. SS NMR is intrinsically free of the limitations imposed on liquid state NMR by the size of the system under investigation, as long as the number of magnetic nuclei is that of a molecule up to 30 kDa, and can handle molecular systems that are not amenable to X-ray studies, such as insoluble aggregates and fibrils. New exciting possibilities are discovered almost daily and SS NMR is thus expected to open new avenues for modern biology in the near future. SS NMR within Instruct provides an invaluable tool for the determination of the structure and dynamics of systems that are beyond the reach of other structural methods. It has a wide applicability, ranging from membrane proteins to nano-crystalline materials to insoluble aggregates and fibrils. State-of-the-art instruments and experimental protocols enable the determination of a number of biophysical parameters allowing, along with structural determination, the characterization of both the internal and global dynamics of the system at atomic detail. These features make SS NMR a vital technique in structural biology.
