Aarhus Universitets segl

Sustainable state-of-the-art upgrade of the Danish Center for Ultrahigh-Field NMR Spectroscopy.

With a grant of DKK 15 million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Thomas Vosegaard (Professor and iNANO Director) and co-applicants will be able to upgrade Northern Europe’s most powerful NMR instrument, and the existing hardware will be reused for a sustainable upgrade of other in-house NMR instruments. Additionally, the grant makes it possible to waive a number of external user access fees to the facilities.

Thomas Vosegaard, Jørgen Skibsted, Niels Christian Nielsen, and Frans Mulder receive DKK 15 million for upgrading Nothern Europe’s most powerful NMR instrument and magnet. (Photo: AU Photo)
Thomas Vosegaard, Jørgen Skibsted, Niels Christian Nielsen, and Frans Mulder receive DKK 15 million for upgrading Nothern Europe’s most powerful NMR instrument and magnet. (Photo: AU Photo)
Novo Nordisk Foundation supports upgrade og Northern Europe's most powerful NMR instrument. (Photo: Lars Kruse, AU Photo)
Novo Nordisk Foundation supports upgrade og Northern Europe's most powerful NMR instrument. (Photo: Lars Kruse, AU Photo)

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a key analytical technique for identification and determination of molecular structure and dynamics with atomic resolution. The quality of the studies depends largely on the magnetic field strength of the NMR instrument. In turn, the molecular systems amenable for NMR studies rely on very expensive ultrahigh-field NMR instrumentation. For example, the instrument contributes to investigating future alternatives to antibiotics. 

This need is served by the Danish Center for Ultrahigh-Field NMR Spectroscopy at Aarhus University. With the most powerful NMR instrument in Northern Europe, this NMR center also provides a ticket to European networks of high-field NMR centers having major impact on Danish NMR research.

State-of-the-art bio-NMR with access for external users

The Novo Nordisk Foundation has granted DKK 15 million to the NMR Center, which will make it possible to boost the applicability, user accessibility, and up-time of this instrument enormously by bringing the hardware to state-of-the-art serving our users in Denmark, Scandinavia, and Europe.

The instrument consists, among other things, of a large magnet (Northern Europe's largest), which is almost like a good vintage wine – it does not become inferior over the years. On the other hand, the electronics become obsolete like all other electronic equipment and it is precisely the electronics that can now be upgraded with this generous grant.

First of all the console of the 950 MHz NMR system will be upgraded, and the current console will be reconfigured to make a sustainable upgrade of a 600 MHz spectrometer. At the same time, the grant gives us a better opportunity to welcome external users, as the grant will cover the costs for a number of external users each year during the 5-year project period.

Read more about The Danish Center for Ultrahigh-Field NMR Spectroscopy here: https://nmr.au.dk/

Read also: NMR Center part of new EU project: providing worldwide access to infrastructures in solid-state NMR

Professor and iNANO Director Thomas Vosegaard receives the grant together with Professor Jørgen Skibsted, Professor Niels Christian Nielsen, and Professor Frans Mulder. The application was supported by the entire Danish NMR community through a new organization, DANNMR, the European NMR access-providing project PANACEA, as well as a range of academic and industrial users of the NMR facility.


The Novo Nordisk Foundation, Research Infrastructure – Large equipment and facilities

With the Research Infrastructure Programme, the Novo Nordisk Foundation wishes to strengthen the Danish research environment by supporting the establishment and maintenance of infrastructures needed to achieve excellence in research and innovation.

Read more about the research programme here.


For further information, please contact

Professor Thomas Vosegaard
Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO)
Aarhus University
tv@inano.au.dk