NMR in the Life Sciences

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This NATO Double Jump Program, held at Erice, Italy, on NMR in the Life Sciences was supported in part by contributions from Oxford Research Sys­ tems, Philips International, Technicare Corporation, Varian Instruments, Sciemens Medical, and ESA Control. This program brought together three major research activities in biomedical applications of NMR: high resolu­ tion NMR studies of proteins and nucleic acids, in vivo studies of animals, and NMR imaging. Whereas in the development of in vivo NMR and NMR imaging the major technological advances came initially from high resolution NMR spectroscopy, this is no longer the situation. The importance of in vivo NMR and NMR imaging in biomedical science and medical diagnosis haS-resulted in an explosion of growth in these areas involving schools of medicine, hos­ pitals and instrument manufacturers. Major advances in NMR technology now come from biomedical applications of NMR as well as from high resolution NMR. Applications of high resolution NMR to the solutions structures of pro­ teins and nucleic acids have been revolutionized by the development of two dimensional NMR Fourier transform techniques and the techniques of biotech­ nology. Now it is possible, with small proteins up to 10, 000-12, 000 daltons, by 2D FT NMR techniques to follow the path of the polypeptide back­ bone through the molecule. The combination of 2D FT NMR techniques with genetically engineered proteins provides one of the most powerful approaches to understanding the principles of protein folding, protein stucture and enzyme catalysis.