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The Structural Biology NMR Facility is a resource in the University of Minnesota
Medical School under the
Department of Biochemistry, Molecular
Biology and Biophysics (BMBB).
The resource is a user facility housed on level 1 of Hasselmo Hall
located at 312 Church St.SE on the Minneapolis Campus.
Available high field NMR instruments include an 800 MHz, two 600 MHz, and one 500 MHz
Varian Inova, 4-channel NMR spectrometers complete with triple-axis gradients and
a full range of probes. A Varian solid-state 700 MHz instrument and a liquids Bruker 700 instrument were also added in 2007. Data processing and 3-dimensional structure calculations can
be performed on a wide range of Silicon Graphics workstations located in the
Basic Sciences Computing Laboratory
located on level 1 of Hasselmo Hall.
A prospective user of the facility should read the statement
and policies for the facility found on the web site (http://www.umn.edu/nmr) and fill out the
training request form. This form requires Acrobat Reader 7.0 or higher.
New users are expected to understand basic NMR concepts before beginning training, have a defined research project, and should
recognize that training may involve a substantial investment of time
depending on the user's previous experience.
d. Sign-up and Use Charges
Users should submit requests for NMR time
using the web site (http://www.umn.edu/nmr)
under the "Schedule" section. This section is password protected. New users
will receive access to this area during their training.
Requests for NMR time will be filled based on the order received and every effort
will be made to ensure equity in the distribution of scheduled time.
The schedule is posted
on the web site as well as on hard copy in the NMR lab.
The facility staff has the discretion to make schedule adjustments on
short notice, if necessary, to balance specific requirements, and in an effort
to optimize instrument use.
Internal rates apply to academic researchers within the University of Minnesota system and members of MNSCU.
Users must sign in upon arrival using the instrument log books, filling
in data on starting time, and when finished, ending time, total time used,
and account number to be charged. Time charges will be made based on established
rates. Charges will be levied for time that is reserved, but not used,
unless the cancellation procedures above are followed. Regardless of whether
an experiment is successful or not, there will be a charge for the time
used except if an instrument hardware or software problem, as verified
by facility personnel, is the source of an experiment failure. Though time is typically billed in 15 minute increments, a monthly minimum charge $25 does apply.
Further regulations apply for charges on the 800. Please see the 800 guidelines
for a full description of procedures for 800 users.
e. Facility Personnel Activities
Facility personnel provide a resource for enhancing the effectiveness
of the NMR Facility through teaching, training and interacting with users
which can augment expertise in the individual research groups. While major
instructional priority of the facility personnel is to provide operational
training to users, it is anticipated that their knowledge and expertise
will be called upon to varying degrees by users in the pursuit of the research
projects for such things as developing new applications, implementing new
pulse sequences, optimizing experiments for particular systems, and processing
and analysis of multidimensional NMR data. Not only do such efforts involve
the investment of time on the part of the personnel, but also may constitute
significant intellectual and scientific contributions to the research project.
Depending on the magnitude of these contributions, appropriate support
for, and recognition of, these efforts needs to be made. Situations involving
significant time commitments on the part of the facility personnel should
be arranged in advance through personnel and the director. Users are also expected to
invest time in enhancing and expanding their knowledge and proficiency in
NMR and to utilize the expertise available within their research group
in order to become more independent.
f. NMR User Committee
The NMR User Committee currently includes all principal investigators who aid in establishing broad policy related to the academic and research usage of the instruments in the facility including special allocations of instrument time, rates, upgrades, and grants submitted on behalf of the facility. Meetings of the user committee are to be held approximately once every two months. All members of user groups are invited to attend.
g. NMR Steering Committee
This is a smaller committee consisting of the principal investigators of the main user groups within BMBB. This committee meets every two months to discuss more detailed technical and strategic issues, then their results and recommendations are reported to the users, by email and/or at the Users Committee meeting.
The five year strategic plan is also generated by the NMR Steering Committee.
h. Authorship
i. Acknowledgements
Funding for NMR instrumentation was provided by the University of Minnesota
Medical school, the University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences, NSF (BIR-961477) and the Minnesota Medical Foundation.
1. Purpose and Function
2. Operating Policies
New users are required to enroll the NMR Workshop
held several times throughout the year. After completing the workshop,
trainees should plan to spend time practicing during regular hours when facility staff can be present to assist.
New users may also be required to pass a
check-out test, that involves demonstrating proficiency with the execution of
simple 1-D NMR experiments.
New users are also strongly encouraged to take a
course in NMR on campus. Basic instrument charges
will be applied for any training hours outside the workshop.
If an individual has not been successfully checked out after completing the workshop and a maximum of five additional hours training,
that person's suitability as a user or need for additional background training
outside the facility will be evaluated before further training is undertaken.
New users are expected to work during regular business hours when assistance
is available or work with an experienced member of their research group.
Additional training for advanced experiments should be discussed
with and can be arranged through the facility personnel.
Requests from all those who expect to use the instrumentation sporadically
may need additional review if the gaps between use are likely to raise the
need for re-training in order to insure safe and efficient operation of the
instruments.
The decision to train users from outside the University will be handled on a
case-by-case basis taking into account such factors as: an individual's
previous NMR experience, available instrument and facility personnel time,
and available resources to support this activity.
b. Loss of access and privileges
The facility reserves the right to deny facility user privileges to anyone if the individual has insufficient
knowledge and engages in unsafe practices or other unacceptable behavior. Users may not allow any other
users or unauthorized users to use their accounts or have access to their accounts on the online machines.
Providing unauthorized users access to accounts and to the instruments will result in loss of facility access
and user privileges.
To re-gain user privileges, the user may be required to do one or more of the following: re-take the
practical NMR workshop, pass a check-out test, and/or participate in one-on-one training with facility
personnel. Upon completion of re-training, the user will be granted access to the 500 MHz instrument
during regular hours, 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday-Friday. The user must request NMR time at least 24 hrs. in
advance so that NMR facility personnel may confirm that a staff person will be present.
After a probationary period, the facility personnel will re-evaluate the user's status and privileges based
on the user's research requirements and skills as an independent, effective user of the NMR instruments.
c. Other operating policies
Instrument time is a scarce and valuable commodity. Charges will be levied for all time that is scheduled whether the user utilizes the time or not. Time requests can be cancelled up to 48 hrs. in advance of the start of the time block without penalty. After that point, unused time will be charged to the scheduled user for the block unless another user assumes the time. To help avoid unused blocks of time, users should plan their experiments carefully. Facility personnel may make exceptions to this policy on a case-by-case basis.
A facility staff person should be included as a co-author in any publication that received a significant intellectual contribution from that person. Significant intellectual input may include experimental design and optimization, interpretation and analysis of results, or writing (editing) significant portions of a manuscript.
Research advisors should contact the facility director with questions about this policy or about a facility person's contribution to a project. If a publication contains routine data that was obtained with minimal assistance from a staff person, co-authorship is not required, but recognition of that staff person in Acknowledgements is recommended. Such acknowledgements help document the value of the facility personnel to the research community. Service fees charged for experimental data collection do not serve as a substitute for proper acknowledgement or co-authorship of facility personnel.
All publications including any research work that utilized the NMR facility must contain an acknowledgement statement of the funding sources of the instruments and equipment. These funding sources include: NSF (BIR-961477), the University of Minnesota Medical School, the University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences, and the Minnesota Medical Foundation. An example acknowledgement would read: "NMR instrumentation was provided with funds from the NSF (BIR-961477), the University of Minnesota Medical School, and the Minnesota Medical Foundation."
A complete list of these publications must be maintained by the facility to document the need for the equipment and to assist with any future funding opportunities. Research advisors are asked to send copies of all publications that include work that utilized the NMR facility to the facility personnel.