Installation of New 400MHz NMR spectrometer with RT iProbe

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We were fortunate enough to receive a donation from the GR Winn Estate Trust (administered through the Cancer Society Auckland Northland - CSAN) that enabled us to renew our NMR spectrometer facility at the ACSRC.

While we would have liked to upgrade to a higher magnetic field spectrometer, we settled for the Bruker 400 MHz spectrometer with a room temperature iProbe for our small molecule solution samples.

To our surprise we got an upgraded 400MHz Ascend EVO magnet, the first EVO magnet in Australasia. The many boxes got delivered in July and once the installation kit arrived from Australia Bruker could start with discharging the old (22 years old) magnet and dismantling the old setup. Once we were sure that we had cryogens on site (BOC is not that known on timely deliveries at present) we could start with the cooling down process. We used less liquid helium than expected which was a relief and the new magnet has a hold time of 360 days for helium.

The renewed facility was officially opened on 29 November 2023 by the new Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Professor Warwick Bagg and the CEO from CSAN, Andrew Young.

We would like to thank the Trust for providing us with this donation as well as the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences and CSAN for their support.

New PhD student

Lara Molloy has just started her PhD project in the ACSRC looking at the pharmacological modulation of lipid kinases with Associate Professor Jack Flanagan, Dr Julie Spicer, Dr Emma Nolan and Professor Peter Shepherd. Her project focuses on developing allosteric, mutant selective inhibitors of PI3Kalpha for use in breast cancer patients. She will synthesise novel compounds to probe a recently discovered allosteric site to understand the structure-activity relationship and develop a lead compound, before testing its effect in organoids developed from breast cancer tissue.