Magnet to Be Housed Under New Campus Facility
This is a design of a typical 900 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance system. At 12 feet tall, the magnet is 400,000 times stronger than the earth's magnetic field. Graphic Courtesy/PNNL
1 Liquid nitrogen bath 2 Liquid helium bath 3 Outer vacuum chamber 4 Superconducting magnet 5 Probe with sample
UC Berkeley researchers will acquire the world's most powerful magnet to study the structure of proteins and other biomolecules, courtesy of a $5.9 million grant awarded last week from the National Institutes of Health.
Four hundred thousand times stronger than the earth's magnetic field, the magnet is 900 megahertz strong and is known as the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine.
Standing 12 feet tall and 5 feet wide, the 5- to 6-ton magnet consists of a super-conducting spool of wire cooled by a liquid helium bath, said David Wemmer, director of the NMR facility and a UC Berkeley chemistry professor.
It will be used to probe the structure and flexibility of biological molecules. But the magnet can also be used to pursue other areas of biological research—using magnets for analysis is part of an up-and-coming field called nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic research.
UC Berkeley biochemistry professor Tracy Handel's laboratory will focus on cytokines, or the suspected roots of inflammation. Another research area includes the 3-D structures of ribonucleic acid, the source of protein synthesis and a transmitter of genetic information.
"The magnet is a tool in which we can study any protein we want," said Matt Sweeney, one of Handel's graduate students. "We are trying to work on curing diseases, designing drugs, cancer research, responses of the immune system and any biological disorder."
The magnet works like a stereo system, Sweeney explained. The magnets send a pulse that the protein absorbs. The protein then responds by emitting its own frequency which is detected and amplified.
"The nuclei of the sample can absorb radio waves and form frequencies," Wemmer said. "We can deduce the structure and flexibility of the molecule involved."
The magnet can demagnetize credit cards and erase cell phone memories, and is about 200 times stronger than an average junkyard magnet, Sweeney said.
If a passerby is wearing a tool belt, the magnet can pull off a wrench or other metal equipment, Wemmer said.
Because it will be housed beneath the Stanley Biosciences and Bioengineering Facility, which is under construction until 2006, it should not pose any health threat.
Officials at the National Institutes of Health, who approved grant, also want to determine whether a stronger magnet will improve the research, Wemmer said. Most research today involves using a maximum of 800 megahertz of power.
"It's about how far you can stretch the limit," Wemmer said.
Because the magnet will be the first of its size and ability in the local region, scientists from Stanford University, UC San Francisco, UC Davis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Genentech, Inc. are expected to use the magnet to research important disease-causing molecules, Wemmer said.
Access to the NMR area is intended for faculty, graduates and post-doctoral researchers. However, anyone with research interests can have access to it with appropriate approval, said Sweeney.
When the magnet arrives on campus in early 2006, UC Berkeley will be among the first 20 institutions in the world to have it, Wemmer said.
All of the research will be documented in the public Protein Data Bank.
source: http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=12161 17jul03
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