HARBOR BRANCH - OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

POWERFUL NEW BIOTECH EQUIPMENT ACCELERATING HARBOR BRANCH QUEST FOR DRUGS FROM THE SEA

Engineers are now completing the installation of a powerful new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) system at Harbor Branch that will advance and accelerate the institution's quest for drugs from the sea by improving researchers' ability to solve the chemical structures of potentially life-saving compounds. Harbor Branch personnel worked with Congressman Mark Foley and other legislators to secure the $690,000 in state and federal funding needed to purchase the instrument, and a grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation enabled required remodeling of a laboratory to house the system.

"I am very proud that our legislators have such faith in the scientists and engineers at Harbor Branch and in our mission," said Amy Wright, director of the institution's Division of Biomedical Marine Research, "It is great that they continue to help us to stay at the cutting edge of science and education.

Few institutions in the state have comparable systems. "It's a big plus for biotechnology in the region, " said Wright, "and it can definitely feed into and aid work being done at other institutions."

Installation of the new NMR system began in December and has now been completed. The bulk of the instrument's roughly $700,000 price tag came from a $491,000 federal appropriation to the Harbor Branch Center for Sustainable Production of Biomedically Important Natural Products, secured largely through the efforts of Congressman Mark Foley. The balance was covered through funding from the state-funded Center for Excellence for Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology, a consortium based at Florida Atlantic University of which Harbor Branch is a key partner.

Fitting the magnet and associated equipment into its laboratory space required substantial ceiling, wall, and other modifications. This work was funded through a $50,000 grant from the Washington, D.C.-based Richard Lounsbery Foundation.

NMR is one of the most essential tools needed by biotechnology facilities involved in drug discovery research because it enables researchers to unravel the chemical structure of newly discovered compounds with disease-fighting potential. This is a critical first step in the drug development process that allows researchers to confirm the novelty of their finds as well as begin to understand the chemical and therapeutic properties of the material.

NMR allows for the determination of selected atoms in a compound and their placement relative to each other by detecting minor differences in the ways different atoms absorb radio frequency energy when placed in a magnetic field. NMR is also the basis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI, the common medical procedure.

The new system, which replaces a much less powerful machine purchased in 1987, offers a number of substantial advantages. Chief among them is that the new instrument allows the scientists to run experiments that could not be done with the older technology. Many experiments now possible were not even conceived at the time the previous system was built. Wright likens the possibilities opened by the new system to upgrading a personal computer bought in 1987. "It's a world of difference," she said.

The new NMR is also much more sensitive than the old system, so much so that Harbor Branch scientists can now determine a structure with only a few micrograms of the compound, which is almost 50 times less than before. This is a huge time saver as this smaller amount can typically be purified over the space of a few weeks as compared to the months it previously took and allows the scientists to work with much smaller samples of the marine organisms.

The heart of the new system is a monstrous 600 MHz superconducting magnet weighing about a ton that must be cooled using liquid nitrogen and liquid helium. The magnet cannot be bumped, shocked, or tilted in any way or it can be damaged. Given that the magnet was custom made in England by Oxford Magnets, and would take at least six months to replace, moving the magnet into its second-floor laboratory was a delicate, tense challenge. Thankfully, there were no mishaps, the huge magnet is now safely in place, and training has just been completed so work with the new system is now underway.

For more information or to request photos or video, please contact Mark Schrope at 772-216-0390 or Schrope@hboi.edu.

HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic Institution was founded in Ft. Pierce, Fla., in 1971 to support the exploration and conservation of the world's oceans. The institution has held to this mission and grown into one of the world's leading oceanographic institutions with a 500-acre campus, over 200 personnel, and a fleet of sophisticated research ships and submersibles.