Research activities
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Slovenian NMR centre is a national facility open to academic researchers and researchers from industrial partners who require the use of high-field high resolution NMR spectroscopy in solution or in solid state in their research as a part of basic and applied research projects or in industry itself. The Slovenian NMR centre is the Representing entity and the Partner facility of the Republic of Slovenia in the Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium (CERIC ERIC). Modern NMR spectrometers are available to potential users under the 'open access model'.
Annual research program is discussed and approved by the Scientific council of NMR centre. Current members of the scientific council are: Prof. Dr. Janez Dolinšek (Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia - president), Dr. Bojan Mitrović (Lek d.d., Ljubljana, Slovenia, - vice-president), Marko Herga (Krka d.d., Novo mesto, Slovenia), Prof. Dr. Nataša Zabukovec Logar (National Institute of Chemistry (NIC)), Prof. Dr. Roman Jerala (NIC), Prof. Dr. Danijel Kikelj (Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Dr. Franc Čuš (Agricultural institute of Slovenia), Prof. Dr. Jurij Svete (Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), as well as representatives of company Sava d.d., Kranj and the ministry for research.
The cooperation between various research groups and NMR centre at NIC involves numerous basic, applied and industrial projects as well as international research projects. Research is conducted by the following academic institutions that are cofounders and co-investors into equipment of NMR centre: National Institute of Chemistry, Jožef Stefan Institute, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana and Agricultural Institute of Slovenia. In the last few years cooperation of NMR centre at NIC has been extended to colleagues at National University Library, The Slovenian Institute for Hop Research and Brewing, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering, Faculty of Biotechnology and Medicinal Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maribor and Polytechnic, Nova Gorica, Slovenia. Instruments are available to all institutions and companies which apply NMR spectroscopy at their work. Companies Lek, Ljubljana, Krka, Novo mesto and Helios, Domžale use NMR spectrometers as analytical tool as well as in their research and development projects.
Research activities of Slovenian NMR centre are focused on:
- structure of biologically important oligomeric nucleic acid fragments and conformational changes in DNA regions upon interaction with metal ions
- protein structure and dynamics, protein folding and molecular interactions of peptides with lipopolysaharides
- ligand-receptor interactions
- studies of drug molecule interactions with excipients in solution and in solid state
- structure and dynamics of antibiotics in relation with their biological roles
- structure and dynamics of organic molecules, detection and characterization of reactive intermediates in reaction transformations
- studies on natural products
- structure and conformational equilibria of metabolites in solution and in solid state
- determination of byproducts in pharmaceuticals
- structural characterization of phosphate based porous materials and structural changes in the process of hydrothermal synthesis of zeolites
- structural characterization of nanoporous materials for energy storage (batteries)
- studies on structure and purity of polymers, byproducts of polymerization, mechanisms of polymerization and properties of polymers with designed macromolecular structure
- determination of authenticity, quality and origin of Slovenian wines
- GMP-certified qualitative and quantitative analyses of drugs, cosmetics as well as environmental and food chemistry; development of analytics procedures and validation of NMR methods
- Analytical studies for quality control and validation of manufacturing technologies
NMR centre offers collection, and interpretation of NMR spectra on specific structural problems that are part of bachelor, masters and doctoral thesis.