3. Hermann Staudinger Lecture mit Nobelpreisträger Richard R. Ernst

Fascinating Insights in Chemistry, Biology and Medicine by NMR*

The third Hermann Staudinger Lecture was given by Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Richard R. Ernst from the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, ETH Zurich. Ernst is one of the pioneers of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991 for his ground-breaking work in this field.
With the words “it is a pleasure to speak in front of a Hermann Staudinger fan club”, Richard Ernst opened his lecture in the crowded chemistry lecture hall for an intoxicating presentation of nearly one century of NMR history. 
The very beginning of NMR spectroscopy was in the 1920s with the discovery of a non-vanishing angular momentum of nuclei, the so-called “nuclear spin”, and the resulting nuclear magnetic moment. NMR using a magnetic nucleus precessing in a magnetic field was then first measured in molecular beams in 1938 and refined for the use on liquids and solids in 1946.
In the following decades, many excellent researchers have made every endeavour to make NMR, carrier of chemical and structural information of molecules, a powerful tool spanning Chemistry, Biology and Medicine. The pioneering invention of multi-dimensional NMR around 1970 and its immense progress since then have furthermore enabled scientists to extensively study molecular dynamics, e.g. chemical exchange reactions, and the structure and function of biomolecules such as proteins. Using the magnetic field gradient for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) introduced this technique also into medicinal applications as it allows the visualisation of structure and function (fMRI) of tissue and organs and with this the diagnosis of diseases such as brain tumors, stroke or stenosis.
“I am convinced that NMR is going on forever…” concluded Richard Ernst his one hour presentation of lived science. Following the lecture, interested students and scientists had the opportunity to join the Nobel Prize Laureate and come into discussion with him.

* Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy