News
9 June 2009
Agata Rekas is featured in a full page story in the local newspaper, the Illawarra Mercury, for her work contributing to the study of Parkinson's disease. Read her story here.
June 2009
Peter Holden, in a radio interview, talks about how The National Deuteration Facility (NDF) helps science investigate the relationship between the structure and function of proteins, DNA, synthetic polymers or other materials known as 'soft matter'. Listen to the interview here.
May 2009
The recently commissioned Chemical Deuteration Laboratories at the NDF have acquired a range of new equipment in the last few months. With the arrival of the three Parr reactors in Sept 08, chemical deuteration of several fatty acids, alcohols and surfactants has been carried out successfully. Recent additions to the infrastructure include a Shimadzu prep HPLC, a FT-IR Spectrometer (Nicolet iS10) and a GPC system. An LC/MS 4000 QTrap is in the process of being installed and commissioned. The last of the major equipment for the current financial year, a 400 MHz NMR spectrometer will be delivered in early June.
The National Deuteration Facility (NDF) now has a limited range of chemically deuterated molecules available for use in the upcoming round of beam time at the OPAL Reactor.
In the short term, we can provide the following on request:
• Fully deuterated saturated fatty acid (C8 to C18) > 98% D
• Related compounds of the above item (i.e., deuterated alkyl chain terminated with OH, Cl, Br, NH2 ….etc).
• Deuterated alkyl chain (C8-C18) attached to a non-deuterated head group such as glycerol, ester, ethers or any molecule of interest (after discussion).
• Surfactants, i.e., Cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) or related surfactants of different alkyl chain lengths.
• Fully deuterated saturated di-acids [sebacic acid (C10), Azelaic acid (C9)].
• Diethylene glycol-d8
• Fully deuterated linear alkanes.
The first call for proposals for biodeuteration of molecules closed on the 12th of May.
26 September 2008
• Refurbishment of laboratories for the Chemical Deuteration suite for the National Deuteration Facility is now complete. Delivery of three Parr hydrogen reactors in early September will enable commencement of deuteration trials by the end of September 2008.