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What is NAN?

NAN is a collaborative initiative to develop and operate a shared distributed resource for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) with the goal of democratizing NMR, making it more accessible and efficient for applications in biology, chemistry, materials science and other fields, and to foster good data stewardship practices. NAN was established by an NSF midscale (RI2) grant to UConn Health, UGA, and UW-Madison. NAN offers open-access to two 1.1 GHz NMR instruments specialized for solids (UW-Madison) and solutions (UGA), along with a roster of additional NMR instruments at participating facilities which may be discovered through the web portal. Beginning in July 2025, membership in NAN is widened to encompass additional NMR facilities beyond the initial three facilities.

NAN provides a suite of Knowledgebases (KBs) in Bio Solids, Material Solids, Bio Solutions, and Metabolomics that comprehensively guide novice and expert users through discovering how NMR may be utilized to study interesting scientific problems as well as KB datasets with all the resources needed to recapitulate those experiments. NAN member nodes help to contribute additional KB content and new KB datasets.

Portal dashboards provide tools for (1) facility staff to manage facility, instrument, and probe information, as well as manage facility users, (2) PIs to create projects and manage lab members, and (3) a virtual Network Operations Center (vNOC) for monitoring NAN.

A distinguishing feature of NAN is the NAN Data Transport System (NDTS) and Data Browsers. NDTS automatically harvests experimental data and archives it into the NAN Archive. Datasets are linked with rich metadata such as instrument, parameters, user, project, sample, and other information. Users view and manipulate data in an advanced Data Browser where they can edit experiments, add notes, classify experiments, and organize data into projects, studies, and collections. PIs are stewards of data collected in their lab and control access. Users can create detailed sample records and link samples with datasets.

For a full breakdown of capabilities across the portal, see the Feature Summary.

Interested in having your NMR facility join as a NAN node? Checkout the Joining NAN page for more information.

NAN Portal Resources

Collapsible menu bar

The NAN portal is composed of a Resource Connector which is accessible publicly as well as pages requiring an NMRhub account for access. See the Creating an Account page for how to create an account and the User Roles and Permissions page for a full list of user roles. The NAN Resources for authenticated users are itemized in a collapsible menu on the left hand side of the web-portal and organized as follows:

• Resource Connector (publicly accessible content)
  • Facilities (list of facility nodes connected to NAN with details such as a description, contacts, addresses, instruments, and services)
  • Instruments (list of instruments from the facility nodes that are a part of the NAN Network)
  • Knowledgebases
    • Knowledgebases for non-Experts (concise overviews for newcomers that explain how NMR can address specific research questions, with links to related literature vignettes and Expert KBs)
    • Knowledgebase Datasets (exemplar datasets with step-by-step protocols and/or analysis scripts that cover sample preparation, experimental setup, signal processing, and data analysis)
    • Materials Periodic Table (interactive periodic table to explore the feasibility of utilizing NMR in materials science)
  • Vignette Library (brief synopses of peer-reviewed studies where NMR played a key role, helping novice users appreciate the technique’s utility and a place to "advertise" publications utilizing NMR)
  • Public & Published datasets and collections
• Facility Dashboards (only visible / accessible by NMR facility managers and staff and used to enter facility and instrument information as well as management of NDTS user settings)
• Operations Dashboards
• Data Browsers (accessible to authenticated NMRhub users for viewing datasets, samples, collections, and their permissions)
• UHF Access (accessible to authenticated NMRhub users to request access to ultra-high-field (UHF) instruments including two 1.1 GHz NAN spectrometers at NMRAM (solids) and CCRC (solutions)
• Lab Administration (accessible by PIs and PI delegates to manage lab members, permissions, projects, and funding)
• USNAN Python SDK (provides programmatic access to public data and metadata from the USNAN Network API)
  

NAN Data Transport System (NDTS)

NDTS is a system for automatically harvesting data from NAN connected spectrometers to the central NAN archive. NDTS is comprised of a Daemon and lightweight GUI installed on the spectrometer workstations, Gateway software running on a dedicated computer within the NMR facility, and a Receiver and Parser running within the NAN datacenter. NMR facility staff manage the NDTS settings for users through the NAN portal and can adjust NDTS settings through configuration files. Harvested datasets are viewable in the Dataset Browser by those with proper permissions set by PIs as well as facility managers have access to all data collected in their facility.

See the NDTS Documentation for detailed information on NDTS installation, configuration, usage, troubleshooting, and detailed explanation on how NDTS functions.

Help & Support

Support Tickets

Support tickets may be created from within the NAN Portal by:

• Selecting the NMRhub widget in the top right corner of all NAN portal pages. From the widget enter your Email Address (only needed if not logged in with an NMRhub account), enter your Message, and selecting Submit.
  • This is the preferred method as it allows us to track the page where you are having issues.
• Support tickets may also be generated by sending an email to support@usnan.org

FAQ

A FAQ page on this wiki provides answers to frequently asked questions

Wiki Documentation

This wiki provides the written documentation for the NAN portal and NDTS. It is intended to be community driven and any NMRhub user may login using the login link in the upper right hand corner to make edits or create new pages.