AMMRL: ENC 2008

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Hi all,

I'd like to refresh your radar by reminding you of our meeting at ENC  
this March. The theme for our session is "Bottlenecks and Pitfalls in  
NMR Practice - Working Toward Collective Solutions." The focus will  
be on identifying common problems we face and crafting solutions for  
them.

Two notions have struck resonance already:
1) Pulse sequences. To address the problem of tracking down working  
pulse sequence code, we'll discuss a proposal to request that journal  
editors require authors to include pulse sequence code as  
supplementary material when publishing new experiments.

2) Wikis. These are useful tools for sharing information in a  
community such as ours, but to be successful, they require a good  
combination of participation, usefulness, breadth, and ... other  
things we should discover as a group. We'll spend some time  
discussing what will help NMR wiki(s) work effectively for us.


I'm seeking people who would like to lead discussions of other  
topics. Some of of the ideas that have been mentioned include:
3) Software installation and use. Much NMR software is powerful, but  
can be so practically difficult that it does not get used. Perhaps we  
should discuss our common facilities' needs and draft a set of  
guidelines for software developers that will ensure their labor will  
bear fruit outside their own laboratories.

4) User guides. Managers of many facilities write guides for how to  
use NMR hardware and software, but much of this work is redundant and  
arguably should have been more extensively developed by manufacturers  
and programmers. What can be done to coordinate our efforts and  
improve primary documentation?

5) The sample bottleneck. Oftentimes researchers get good preliminary  
NMR data, but then have so much trouble coming up with a useful  
sample that they give up and move on to other pursuits. (E.g., can  
get enough labeled protein.) Can we pool collective practical  
knowledge of how to produce good NMR samples, thus providing a  
resource for erstwhile users and limiting their pain? Should broker  
connections between investigators?

6) The training bottleneck. How much training to researchers need to  
pursue NMR? Should NMR facilities encourage drop-off data collection  
service for routine experiments and train researchers only in data  
processing? Is this cost-effective? Is it desirable?

7) Equipment reviews. Working so closely with NMR hardware and being  
responsible for maintaining it, we are in prime position to share our  
opinions of different vendors and their products. We already discuss  
these things offline and over AMMRL email, so how about taking the  
next step?


Please let me know if you would like to lead a discussion and if  
there is an issue you would like to see brought up at the meeting. I  
am especially interested in hearing from colleagues in industry and  
those in solids NMR, whose concerns I am less familiar with and from  
whom I haven't heard much yet.

Thanks for your attention.

- Josh


Josh Kurutz, Ph.D.
Technical Director, Biomolecular NMR Facility
University of Chicago
Gordon Center for Integrative Science, room W123C
929 E. 57th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
Office: (773) 834-9805
Spectrometer Room: (773) 702-4052
Cell: (773) 315-5732
Fax: (208) 978-2599
nmr.bsd.uchicago.edu
homepage.mac.com/jkurutz

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