Nuclear Magnetic Resonance of Biological Samples

I. INTRODUCTION A. Preamble

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is the only physical technique currently available that can potentially measure the concentration of free metabolites deep inside structurally and functionally intact biological samples. Consequently, the explosion in its application to the study of chemical events in, and structural properties of, many differing microorganisms and tissues is not surprising. The use of NMR for the study of biological systems has only really developed over the past 10 of the 35 years since the experimental demonstration of the NMR phenomenon.^1,2