MULTIDIMENSIONAL NMR PICKS UP SPEED

Abstract

SINCE THE DEVELOPMENT of multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy some three decades ago, spectroscopists have hoped obtain multidimensional spectra more rapidly Now, chemistry professor Lucio Frydman and coworkers at Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, have devised ultrafast multidimensional NMR, a technique that can shorten by orders of magnitude the time required for multidimensional experiments [ Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA , 99, 15858(2002)]. The method obtains a complete multidimensional NMR spectrum in a single scan instead of the large numbers currently required, and it can be carried out with conventional NMR hardware and techniques. Ultrafast multidimensional NMR could aid studies of chemical structure and dynamics and could be useful in combinatorial chemistry, where large numbers of compounds need be analyzed rapidly It might also make it possible, Frydman says, to record NMR movies of dynamic systems—such as proteins folding and in vivo metabolism. Mul...