IQS Inaugurates Its New State-of-the-Art Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory

On 14 October, IQS inaugurated its new JEOL Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) laboratory, a state-of-the-art infrastructure that places the school in the global network of leading NMR laboratories. The event featured participation by representatives from higher education and business.

“The incorporation of these devices not only reinforces our position as a leading research centre, but also enables us to contribute to the technological development of our surroundings and be part of a global network of top-tier laboratories,” stated Salvador Borrós, Director of IQS, during the welcome speech for the event.

Bruno Achard, Managing Director of JEOL Europe, underlined the role of NMR in advanced research: “NMR is an irreplaceable tool for the elucidation of complex molecular structures, and these new instruments position IQS at the forefront in this field.”

The event began with a keynote speech by José Luis Latorre, CEO of IZASA Scientific, a supplier of JEOL equipment in Spain, entitled “Ingredients for the people who will succeed in the 21st century.” In the words of this expert, the installation “is designed to serve the chemical and pharmaceutical business sector, as well as higher education, placing our region in a prominent position within the competitive landscape of new drug development.”

According to Latorre, “it will not only facilitate research and development in this sector, but it will also promote the decarbonization of European society and encourage the creation of new sustainable materials.” He also highlighted the desire for this device to contribute to a more innovative and responsible future.

Various experts took the stage during the morning session, including Ahmed Dhifaqui, head of the Analytical Instrumentation Division of Izasa Scientific, Adolfo Botana, specialist in JEOL NMR applications in the United Kingdom, Nader Amin, developer of JEOL NMR software in Japan, and Dr Josep Saurí, expert in NMR structural elucidation. Their presentations highlighted the unique characteristics of the new instrument, as well as its possible applications in different fields of scientific research.

This NMR installation makes IQS the first school in the Iberian Peninsula to have a demo laboratory from JEOL, a Japanese manufacturer of NMR equipment, reaffirming IQS’s commitment to cutting-edge research and technological collaboration between higher education and business.

The technology in this laboratory offers unique capabilities. The device has two state-of-the-art spectrometers: the 400 MHz spectrometer, equipped with hybrid probes for liquids and solids, is especially versatile for applications in the pharmaceutical industry and in researching state-of-the-art materials. With its cryogenic probe, the 600 MHz spectrometer will make it possible to carry out studies with very high sensitivities, a crucial factor in highly complex biomedical projects.

This project is the result of the partnership between IQS, JEOL, and Izasa Scientific, which not only includes the acquisition of new equipment, but also the dissemination of these types of mixed platforms between higher education and business. As such, the agreement reached between these entities will also facilitate the organization of annual demonstrations of the device by JEOL, as well as holding high-level academic events, such as the JEOL-IQS NMR Summer School, which will bring together experts and students from all over the world to study the latest advances in the NMR technique. In short, it is an important milestone for the advancement of NMR in the Iberian Peninsula that opens up new opportunities for researchers and students alike.