The College of Science welcomes back biochemistry alumnus Patrick Reardon (‘01) as the Director of the new Macromolecular Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Facility, located on the first floor of the Linus Pauling Science Center. A formal dedication ceremony for the new 800 MHz NMR instrumentation is scheduled for November 10.
An NMR spectroscopist, Dr. Reardon will oversee the operation of OSU’s new NMR Facility, which currently includes five NMR spectrometers, the new 800 MHz NMR and others ranging from 400 to 700 MHz. He will also provide training and support to users of the facility, assist them with experimental design and implementation of research plans that utilize NMR spectroscopy, and work with faculty and the administrators to continually improve the NMR facility instrumentation.
After more than three years, Biochemistry and Biophysics Professor Elisar Barbar and her team received $1.3 million from the National Institutes of Health, another $504K from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust and $600K from OSU for the high-end Macromolecular Nuclear Magnetic Resonance instrument. A campus-wide collaboration provided significant matching funds from OSU’s Office of Research, the Colleges of Science, Pharmacy and Agricultural Science, the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Biophysics as well as the Environmental Health Sciences Center and the Center for Genome Research & Biocomputing.
The only one of its kind in the region, the NMR was installed this summer and is expected to attract scientists from across the region, nation and perhaps beyond while fostering collaboration. The new facility has the potential to propel and galvanize significant research on protein folding, gene discovery and biochemical structural informatics used in the treatments of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.
Reardon received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Duke University, where he focused his thesis on NMR spectroscopy and its application to complex biological systems. After completing his Ph.D., Reardon received the prestigious William Wiley Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory located at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.
As a Post-Doctoral fellow, Reardon applied and expanded his knowledge of NMR spectroscopy and biochemistry, working in a wide range of research areas including structural biology, metabolomics, metabolic flux analysis, and soil science.
