In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll be closing the Chemistry NMR Facility THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 20.
Timing
- FRIDAY 12:00 NOON all experiments must have begun. No samples may be inserted into the magnets or autosampler carousel after 12:00 noon.
- FRIDAY 15:00 all experiments must be complete. Instrument consoles will be switched off.
- FRIDAY 17:00 all samples must be retrieved. Samples left in either Searle or GCIS NMR rooms after 17:00 / 5:00 PM Friday March 20 will be considered abandoned. PLEASE TAKE YOUR SAMPLES!
Please complete all of your NMR-dependent work as soon as possible so you can meet these deadlines. But PLEASE BE SAFE! DO NOT RUSH to do extra work because of this new timeline; rushed chemistry leads to unsafe laboratory practices. If you already had a well-defined experiment plan that included NMR analysis Friday morning, you are welcome to continue with that plan. Otherwise, you are advised to complete your final NMR analyses tonight or tomorrow.
Critical Work
Rare accommodations may be made only for work defined as “critical”. Chemistry Chair Andrei Tokmakoff has indicated that “critical” work includes:
- Lab work where discontinuation would generate significant and irreplaceable data and sample loss
- Work that directly relates to COVID-19 that could help address the current crisis
For example, filling the magnets with cryogens so they do not quench is considered critical. Very little NMR data collection meets this definition of “critical”.
We have not yet determined a date for re-opening the facility. I’ll inform you as soon as possible when we determine operations may safely resume.
Thank you. Stay safe and healthy!
– Josh
P.S., NOTE ON DATA BACKUP: You are NOT allowed to plug in USB drives into any of the facility computers (spectrometers, offline processing computers, etc.). This prohibition offers protection from a different kind of virus – the computer kind. All it takes is for one person to stick an infected USB thumb drive into one of our computers and potentially render our whole system useless and maybe cause instrument damage. Please back up your data over the network; some good protocols for doing so are posted here:
https://chemnmrlab.uchicago.edu/data/
Please let me know if you need help figuring out backup.