Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy, the overlooked powerhouse of biology -Chapter 2
It’s not all AlphaFold, Cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction of crystals when it comes to studying the atomic structure of biological matter. The much-overlooked technique of nuclear magnetic resonance can fill many voids that other techniques can’t even approach. Here we move into NMR’s key concepts, important for the next chapters, and overview what’s coming next regarding applications to biology.
Published in
11 min readApr 11, 2023
If you are totally new to NMR, check out the introductory chapter first:
As we saw in the first chapter, NMR spectroscopy is different to other spectroscopies in that the main signals arise from individual nuclei, hence atoms. Thus, NMR can provide highly detailed information, yep, right at atomic resolution.
Each NMR resonance or signal has 3 main features that depend, and hence report, on molecular structure and dynamics.
