a) A 600 MHz high resolution NMR spectrometer has been devel- oped at Carnegie Mellon with the cooperation of Intermagnetics General Corporation, and it has provided a broad scientific commu- nity with NMR spectra at the highest field for more than 12 years. The continuous effort to improve and broaden the present operation calls for the solutions of the following problems: I) Improvement of the effective homogeneity of the magnetic field. 2) Construction of multi-nuclei, multiple-tuned high-sensitivity probes. 3) Faster and more efficient hardware and data processing system for 2D- and 3D- NMR spectroscopy at high field. 4) Application of new signal processing techniques for improvement of signal-to-noise ratio and the efficiency of the NMR experiment. 5) Instrumentation and techniques suitable for NMR experiments at magnetic fields around 20 Tesla.
b) Systematic characterization of body fluids using very high-field NMR has been under way here for some time. Presently, we con- centrate on amniotic fluid of patients in our local hospital. One of the ambitious goals of the research is to develop a useful clinical test for monitoring of some diseases before and after therapy.