Abstract
The Network for Advanced NMR (NAN) is a novel distributed resource that connects Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facilities via a scalable cyberinfrastructure supporting NMR data harvesting, interactive data management, and the discovery of instruments, methods, and data to enable emerging data standards in biomedicine, chemistry, and material science. Anchored by the first open-access 1.1 GHz instruments in the USA, NAN integrates NMR facilities around a centralized hub for identity management, resource discovery, and access control. The system includes automated data harvesting through the NAN data transport system (NDTS), metadata-rich data archiving, and interactive web-based tools for data and metadata browsing, editing, and publishing, as well as tools for facility and laboratory data management by facility managers and principal investigators. NAN knowledgebases provide vetted, standardized pulse programs, protocols, parameters, and example datasets, along with processed data. Supported by the US National Science Foundation Midscale Research Infrastructure program, NAN helps to democratize access to NMR resources and fosters open, reproducible science.
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Data availability
The NAN resource is available as a web portal (https://usnan.nmrhub.org), which provides interactive access to the data browser, sample browser, and associated management tools. All datasets originate from community users of NAN and are automatically harvested from NAN nodes and archived with rich metadata in the repository (see Data Harvesting). Publicly available datasets can be searched, filtered, and downloaded through the NAN data browser (see Data and Sample Browsers). Users without a NAN account can access all public datasets via the “Public & Knowledgebase Datasets” view located on the Resource Connector (https://usnan.nmrhub.org/resource-connector/public-datasets). Datasets become public three years after harvesting unless released earlier by the investigator, and immutable published versions are assigned persistent identifiers and are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to support citation and reuse (see Publishing & Public Data). Access to embargoed non-public datasets is governed by PI controlled permissions (see Accounts & Permissions). In addition to the interactive web portal, NAN provides programmatic access through a Python software development kit (SDK) and RESTful API, enabling automated queries, dataset downloads, and integration into external workflows.
Code availability
As a research infrastructure system, most NAN software has little relevance for individual investigators and therefore is not released publicly. The exception is the Python SDK, which is available on GitHub (https://github.com/NanNMR/PythonSDK) and on the Python Package Index (https://pypi.org/project/usnan/). This SDK provides programmatic access to the system. Internal components such as the NDTS spectrometer components, gateway software, receiver and parser services, along with back-end APIs are restricted for security reasons but may be made available to responsible research organizations with conditions. Organizations interested in deploying an instance of NAN cyberinfrastructure should contact the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
NAN is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-2 program (Grant Number 1946970) and an Operations and Maintenance grant for sustaining the NAN cyberinfrastructure (Grant Number 2529058).
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Conceptualization of NDTS and the NAN portal was carried out by M.W.M., J.C.H. & K.H.W. Technical requirements were defined by M.W.M., J.C.H., K.H.W., Y.P., S.T., M.R.G., M.P.W., I.I.M. & A.L.P. NDTS and web-portal software components were developed by C.B., J.R.W., G.W. & H.B. Validation and testing were performed by M.W.M., J.C.H., K.H.W., Y.P., S.T., M.R.G., A.P., B.S., L.M., J.N.G., M.U., A.E., A.E.M., J.H.G., A.L.P., S.W., P.R.P. and B.H.V. The original draft was prepared by M.W.M., J.C.H., C.B., and K.H.W. with all authors contributing to reviewing and editing. Project administration was undertaken by Q.C., J.C.H., M.W.M., K.H.W., A.S.E., C.M.R., L.M. and B.H.V.
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Hoch, J.C., Henzler-Wildman, K., Edison, A.S. et al. Scalable cyberinfrastructure for experimental NMR data. Sci Data (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06446-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06446-y
