University of Rochester
Shared Resource Facility

Cancer Center
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility

The facility is a resource for developing and applying NMR methods to address problems related to cancer growth and therapy. NMR fills a unique need for the in vivo study of tissue physiology. The tools are well suited for the study of therapeutic mechanisms and tissue damage. NMR spectroscopy of 31,37CI, 23Na, and 19F can be used to monitor a variety of cellular activities, and imaging techniques can be used to measure tissue perfusion and blood flow, and to detect necrosis, various lesions, blood-brain barrier damage, and other morphologic properties of tissue.

The facility aims to provide hardware, hardware development, technique development, user training, and other resources for solving the problems associated with performing NMR experiments. The two instruments in the Annex NMR facility are suitable for animal studies. The horizontal-bore 2 Tesla instrument can accomodate animals as large as monkeys, while the 9.4 Tesla instrument is limited to mouse and small rats. In addition, the 9.4 T instruement is capable of multi-dimensional high resolution spectroscopy of small molecules and proteins. The 9.4 T instrument is capable of the most advanced state-of-the-art imaging or gradient-enhanced spectroscopy techniques. The current capabilities of the 2 T instrument are less far ranging, but it performs the most common experiments very well and may soon receive a hardware upgrade. Two off-line computer workstations are available for image and data processing.

Time on the 2 Tesla instrument is charged at a rate of $25 per hour between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays, and $10 per hour at all other times. Cancer Center users who annually use large amounts of time or can operate without assistance are billed at reduced rates. Time on the 9.4 Tesla instrument is charged at the rate of $5 per hour at all times. Users from other universities and industry pay more. Matrix camera films are $1 each. Each user is expected to supply his/her own film for the network Polaroids/slide/print device.