Drug discovery requires the testing of a large number of samples to identify molecules with a potential therapeutic potential. The recent development of methods to perform such tests within seconds using sample illumination in a magnetic field could increase the throughput of such studies. We present a setup that integrates light into fully automated and commercially available instrumentation. This platform upgrade can increase the drug discovery throughput by a factor of 20 to 50-fold.

The signals that are attainable in conventional NMR are tiny, and consequentially, NMR is often slow and insensitive. The intensity may be increased by hyperpolarization, provided that the spectral quality is essentially preserved. We have recently reported a potentially powerful hyperpolarization scheme, named bullet-DNP (dynamic nuclear polarization). Here, we report a 10-fold improvement in resolution for that method, which may enable new applications in metabolomics and drug discovery.

We present a system for facilitated sample vitrification, melting, and transfer in dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization experiments. The system enables insertion of a sample through an airlock in combination with a dedicated dissolution system that is inserted through the same airlock shortly before the melting event. The cryostat can thus be operated continuously at low temperatures, and the melting process is rapid as no pressurization steps of the cryostat are necessary for dissolution.

The sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging can be increased by coupling of the less sensitive nuclear spins which are excited at radio frequencies to unpaired electron spins of radicals which are excited at microwave frequencies. Here we demonstrate how a Fabry–Perot-type microwave resonance structure can be used to significantly enhance the polarization transfer from electron to water proton nuclear spins under constant flow conditions for imaging applications at 1.5 T.