I feel like I should note this given my last post – the expositions of NMR that I can recall sitting through over the last decade have focused on the effects of judiciously applied B1 fields have on nuclear spin magnetic moments, not absorption/emission of electromagnetic quanta. I suppose the "absorption notion" – even if only intended in a handwavy pedagogical manner – is one that can feel fairly natural and not too extraordinary (given that spectroscopic methods that do involve actual absorption/emission of quanta are ubiquitous). But onto what I really wanted to discuss today.

The perils of quantitative biochemistry.

I have returned to contending with my old nemesis, sedimentation assays. Back in the day, I was interested in the interaction of a protein with a polymer, in particular the stoichiometry of said interaction (e.g., how many monomer units needed to bind one protein). While I eventually managed to get a reasonable-seeming estimate, it took a few tries to really pin down the optimal way to do it in a clear and reproducible manner. Nowadays, I am interested in the formation of a protein complex on the surface of a vesicle.

Once again, my latest attempt at quantification of a particular interaction was doomed to “no one with two neurons to rub together would trust anything on this gel.” Lesson learned yet again to not just double-check everything, but quadruple-think every step and every sample that is loaded, to say nothing of any assumptions about the entire process. In the vein of the old adage, one has to pick two of the following – quickly, easily, properly – to do their biochemistry. Being crunched for time, I naturally figured the first two would be best (as my brief attempt at doing this same basic type of measurement - same system, albeit with some modest differences) worked out somewhat well a few months ago).

One of the major issues is that reasonable-enough precautions (a particular wash step) one might take to improve the quality of said measurements is not feasible in this system since said precaution will cause unwanted (and functionality-inhibiting) aggregation. Alas. The major issue is that there are a number of little things that need to be done just right in order to ensure gloriously clear results and measurement-to-measurement reproducibility.

Odds and Ends –

1.) A good chunk of my tax refund this year is going for my chronic science habit. Software, books, and single malt Scotch. Well, OK, the last might not properly qualify.
2.) I find the entire International Year of Chemistry thing to be charming. The efforts being made by various organizations is vaguely reminiscent of someone thinking that as long as they make an effort on their partner’s birthday and Valentine’s Day, things will work out. Your mileage may vary, but that's the feeling I get in the back of my mind. We should view the IYC as a beginning, not merely a window of opportunity, to educate, enlighten, and entertain those around us.
3.) I have this urge to discuss protein dynamics. Future posts, I suppose.

And with that, I’ll be off. Read more!

You spin me right round baby.....

I saw this come up in the comments here, and figured that it would make for a cute post. I will start off with the mundane, though.

One is frequently asked to picture electromagnetic radiation as an oscillating wave, with the electric and magnetic fields orthogonal to one another as it propagates. This, I imagine, does not come as a surprise to anyone reading this.

As is propagated in the above link, the NMR experiment is presented as utilizing radiofrequency (RF) waves to tickle the nuclear spin magnetic moments. Of course, that leads to the question presented in that post – how does an RF wave (with a wavelength on the order of meters) get absorbed at the scale of a single nucleus? One might also ask an analogous question on the other end of the experiment when one is recording a signal on your nearest friendly NMR spectrometer.

Now, for two related things to think about –

The first is the oft-neglected sibling in the magnetic resonance community, electron magnetic resonance (EMR, also known as ESR or EPR depending on who you speak to). One of the fun little things that you can shovel a sample into is a flat sample cell. This is exactly what it sounds like – your sample is basically sandwiched between two planes of quartz. It is helpful since you can position your sample (typically aqueous in this case, as they’re notoriously lossy) at a point of maximum magnetic field (high B1) and minimal electric field (low E1), which keeps the resonator Q-factor high as well as keeping your sample from heating up, which can make for sad spectroscopic pandas.

The second is the development of so-called “Low-E” probes for the biological solid state NMR community. Given that they are not infrequently studying aqueous samples with some amount of salts (aka lossy as hell), and the traditional need for high power decoupling to get adequately resolved spectra, minimizing sample heating has been a major focus of effort within the community. The result here is a probe that minimizes heating from the electric field, actually using some insights from the EMR/EPR/ESR community.

Now, if we think about what’s going on here….they’re trying to minimize the influence of the electric field (E1) by either judicious sample placement or probe design. We know from basic electromagnetism that an EM wave is composed of both electric and magnetic field components. It would seem that the absorption of EM radiation in magnetic resonance is not necessary for a successful experiment. It would, in fact, appear to be the case that what is important is the magnetic field that is generated by an appropriate EM source (RF for NMR/MRI, microwave for EMR) for the magnetic resonance experiment. The electric field appears to simply be a source of woe and frustration.

Of course, as noted in the comments to the above link, this is not new thinking. Hoult and his collaborators have been working on this topic in various ways and manners for over two decades now. There’s also that fun paper by Hanson regarding the necessity of quantum mechanics for understanding magnetic resonance. And more recently, there’s been a rather lengthy (and somewhat dense – I have a copy printed out, haven’t had a chance to really dig into it just yet) article on virtual photons in magnetic resonance, following up on Hoult’s suggestion from a while back.

Alright, back to things.... Read more!

There's a discussion here on a variety of topics, and in the comments, the issue of "homegrown" versus "bought" talent comes up. Of course, as may be par for the course, I suspect I see schools somewhat differently than the majority of the commenters there (I think of how awesome their NMR people are, naturally, followed by their biophysical chemists), so I was like, "How can someone say School X has no homegrown superstars - Professor Y went from fresh assistant professor to NAS electee in like 15 years?" But anyway.

I am feeling uncommonly pleasant and motivated this evening, though. Small victories in lab will do that to a person. I suppose I should power on through and finally finish up my taxes. Read more!