NMR

The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Shared Core Facility at the UofL Health – Brown Cancer Center (BCC) is located within the Molecular Imaging Research Center (MIRC). The facility provides state-of-the-art solution NMR capabilities to support research in structural biology, biophysics, drug discovery, and metabolomics. Access is available through collaborative projects as well as fee-for-service, with training provided for independent operation.

The facility houses two modern spectrometers (600 MHz and 400 MHz), both equipped with cryogenically cooled Prodigy probe technology to maximize sensitivity and experimental flexibility.

Instrumentation

14.1T, 4.2K Oxford Magnet / Bruker Avance NEO (600 MHz)

4-Channel NMR Spectrometer
5 mm ¹H/¹⁹F {¹³C/¹⁵N} Prodigy CryoProbe

9.4T, 4.2K Agilent Technologies Magnet / Bruker Avance NEO (400 MHz)

Multi-Channel NMR Spectrometer
5 mm Broadband Inverse (BBI) ¹H/¹⁹F {X} Prodigy CryoProbe
24-position autosampler for high-throughput, automated data collection

Prodigy CryoProbe Capabilities

Both instruments are equipped with Bruker Prodigy CryoProbes, which significantly enhance experimental sensitivity by cryogenically cooling the radiofrequency (RF) coils and preamplifiers (~80 K). This design reduces thermal noise in the detection circuitry, resulting in substantial improvements in signal-to-noise without directly cooling the sample. Key advantages include 1) enhanced sensitivity for low-concentration samples and limited material and 2) improved performance for large biomolecular complexes and metastable systems.

Services

The NMR Core Facility supports a wide range of applications, including:

• High-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution
• Characterization of molecular dynamics across ps–s timescales
• Analysis of molecular interactions (protein–protein, protein–DNA/RNA, protein–ligand)
• Stable Isotope Resolved Metabolomics (SIRM) using ¹³C-labeled substrates
• Structural characterization of small molecules.

Custom experiment development and advanced NMR methodologies 

User Access

Users may access the facility independently following training or through collaboration with facility staff. The combination of high-field and mid-field instrumentation, cryogenic probe technology, and automated sample handling enables efficient and flexible data collection for both routine and advanced studies.