The Know-how and experience from NMR and MRI specialists
The operation of the Centre is based on a fruitful local collaboration of several groups from different scientific fields and the extended know-how and experience available from the NMR and MRI specialists (see staff ).
The dedicated research tasks of the Centre are as follows:
· In vivo NMR and MRI on intact plant and tree systems, including root-soil interactions
· In vivo NMR and MRI in biotechnology
- bioreactors
- metabolic pathways (metabolomics in addition to genomics)
- transport processes
- stress response studies
- non-targeted phenotype screening of genetically modified systems
· High-resolution NMR
- small biomolecules
- quality control, food authenticity
- automated and hyphenated analysis
· Solid-state NMR, PFG-NMR and MRI on food and soil systems
The 3T MRI and the LC-NMR-MS system are rather unique and cover new applications on (post)genomics, metabolomics (by high throughput, non-targeted screening of complex extract and bio-fluid composition analysis), functional imaging (among others in relation to whole plant performance, stress responses, water use efficiency and plant-soil interactions), food authenticity and safety.
For the next years an increasing interest is expected within the Community in the fields of Agriculture, Food and Biology and the related demand on the use of advanced equipment. Especially in new post-genomic applications NMR spectroscopy and functional MRI will play an important role, as well as advanced analytical applications (i.e. NMR in combination with off-line and on-line LC and MS, miniaturization (mobile NMR MOUSE), high-resolution NMR, MRI image guided cell sampling followed by off-line LC-NMR-MS analysis). LC-NMR will be further developed and improved ((cryo-)micro-coils, radical scavenging trapping for antioxidant screening, automation) (EC RTD project).
Major enhancements are in the collaborations with several new NMR Users in Europe, and covering unexplored applications. A number of these collaborations have already turned into stable long-term collaborations with (former) Users via, among others, EC-projects in the field of e.g. food safety issues, plant water relations and aquaporin functioning, biomedicine, (post) genomic research and nano-scale analytical (separation) technology.