Conference: Inauguration Conference of 1.2 GHz NMR Spectrometer of National Gateway Ultrahigh Field NMR Center

This award will support a conference in the Spring of 2025 for the first 1.2 GHz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer in the U.S., which was funded by the NSF through an MidScale Research Infrastructure-1 grant. The conference will highlight the capabilities of this new instrument for a diverse range of applications from biomolecular NMR in solution and the solid-state to materials science and metabolomics.

The in-person conference will bring together a representative cross-section of the U.S.-based NMR and broader scientific community that is expected to use and benefit from the capabilities of this shared instrument. The conference will provide professional development opportunities for graduate students, postdocs, and early career faculty. The science enabled by the 1.2 GHz NMR spectrometer will also help improve the competitiveness of the United States in areas of materials science, biophysics, and biology.

The conference supported by this award will bring together scientists in the fields of molecular biophysics, biomedicine, and materials who research systems that can benefit from the unique capabilities of the new ultrahigh field NMR instrument. Oral presentations by researchers at various career stages working in these fields will highlight their latest research along with challenges that they anticipate can be addressed by using the 1.2 GHz NMR spectrometer.

The conference will also feature a poster session, a round-table panel discussion to reflect the visions by selected participants, and an information session about the operation and scheduling of NMR time on the 1.2 GHz NMR spectrometer. Flash talks by all poster presenters will promote visibility within the community. Scientists from related fields, such as cryo-EM and computational biophysics and chemistry, will attend the conference to become acquainted with the potential of NMR at ultrahigh fields and provide their perspectives to further enhance the breadth of the conference. Additionally, participants from industry will describe their specific needs in ultrahigh field NMR.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.