Nikolaus Loening

PhD 2001 University of Cambridge, M.Phil. 1998 University of Cambridge, BS 1997 Harvey Mudd College

The main focus of my research is the development of new methods for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and the application this technique to a variety of chemical and biological problems.

NMR spectroscopy is a highly informative technique that is one of the main analytical tools in the sciences. Over the past thirty years, the development of Fourier transform and multidimensional methods has led to the application of NMR spectroscopy to a wide range of problems, including chemical analysis, screening drug targets, the determination of protein structures, understanding fluid dynamics, and medicine (where it is known as MRI: magnetic resonance imaging).

Before coming to the college, I worked as a post-doctoral research fellow with Bob Griffin at MIT and before that I was at the University of Cambridge where I worked on my PhD thesis under James Keeler. I spent the 2006-2007 academic year on a research sabbatical at the Medical Research Council - Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, where I worked on determining protein structures using NMR spectroscopy, and another sabbatical in 2010-2011 in Berlin, Germany, working at the Leibniz Institute für Molekulare Pharmakologie. Most recently, I spent 2017-2018 on sabbatical at Oregon State University where I worked with Elisar Barbar. I led the Lewis & Clark Overseas Program to Australia in Spring 2012 and since then I established our current Overseas Program to Berlin (which I led in Fall 2015, Fall 2019, and Fall 2023).