UM’s acquisition of spectrometers expected to advance research

Ed Waali may be a chemist, but these days the University of Montana professor is also a mother hen and chief baby-sitter for his department’s long-awaited new arrivals: two large nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers that weigh in at 3,000 pounds each – with packaging – and cost $1.5 million total.

Manufactured in the United Kingdom, the pricey equipment will allow campus scientists and their students to figure out the exact structure of chemicals or other materials they are working with and will be used to study organic molecules and proteins, Waali explained.

In other words, ongoing UM research, including work to develop new antibiotics and biodegradable materials, will likely progress by quantum leaps, Waali said.

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2006/06/15/news/local/news02.txt