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Here is the story of the ENC over 50 years, as told by thosewho know most about it – the individuals who have chairedthese conferences. At the suggestion of Chuck Wade [Chair1991], I asked each chairperson to write a page or so about“his/her” ENC – program highlights and themes; issues andanecdotes; the nature of the world when the conference washeld; in short, anything appropriate. The accounts areinteresting, insightful and often humorous.

Unfortunately, three past chairs have died, a few could not be reached, andseveral were unable or unwilling to write anything just now. Bob Lichter andRuth Stark each wrote an article, and I have provided some comments for theremainder.

An Appendix gives a summary of the dates and locations of the ENCs,attendance figures and numbers of posters, along with the names of after-dinnerspeakers.

Ted Becker

1st - 1960 Cleveland

Chair: Bill RitcheyLocal Arrangements: Bill Ritchey

“NMR Spectroscopists Meeting”

The Standard Oil Company (Ohio) acquired a state-of-the-art NMRSpectrometer in October 1959 for about $60,000. It operated at 60MHz, having an electro magnet that developed 1.4 T and weighed oneton. It was the sixth (?) 60 MHz spectrometer that Varian delivered andit was a DP-60, indicating the capability to observe either highresolution or wide line signals. High resolution was the mode that mostspectroscopists were interested in and practically speaking, the Hnucleus was the only element observed. Why? Well, the standard formeasuring signal-to-noise was a 20% solution of ethyl benzene and aproperly functioning instrument yielded a s:n of 6:1. All other nucleiwere much less sensitive. Compare that with a modern 750 MHz systemthat is spec’ed to give a s:n of 6,000:1 with 0.1% ethyl benzene.

Instrument instability was severe, resulting in low spectral out-put and a high level of frustration.The DP-60 had no field-frequency control or spectral line intensity integration and many of thespectra were not reproducible. There were no other 60 MHz spectrometers in Ohio and it’sestimated that the total number of NMR spectrometers in the U.S. was around 50, largely 30 and 40MHz spectrometers. It was not easy to talk with people who could give good advice. After anumber of phone calls and visits to six or seven NMR labs, we learned that we all had similarproblems.

Not only were the problems similar, but the order of importance was also similar, the mostimportant problem being instrument stability and instrument maintenance. So in planning themeeting agenda it was apparent that the prime focus should be on instrument stability. Several atVarian recommended that we invite a young and very capable engineer, Wayne Lockhart, whowould be the ideal person. Wayne was agreeable and we scheduled him for three hours. Spectraloutput was our next priority and Dr. George Slomp of Upjohn agreed to lead that discussion andshare his experiences on the subject. We also thought it desirable for attendees to share innovationsthat they developed and Prof. Paul Bender of the University of Wisconsin would lead thatdiscussion and also describe his motorized magnet trimmer Fortunately Varian was in the finalstages of developing an electric field shim and this would be demonstrated to the attendees. Add afew organizational comments at the beginning and end of the meeting and that was our proposedagenda. So with one change in the proposed agenda, which was to reduce a little the time allotted toWayne and to have George and Paul’s discussions sequentially rather than concurrent, that was ouragenda on June 24, 1960. There were 43 in attendance.

In our final discussion we decided to meet again the next year and possibly a few more times and tokeep our focus on experimental aspects of NMR. Most attendees thought the meeting was a realsuccess and that next year we should not limit invitations to NMR Spectroscopists residing in theNortheast Quadrant of the U.S. but to welcome anyone interested in attending. I don’t think any ofus at that time thought that we would still be meeting annually 50 years later and that attendancewould be around 1,500.

2nd - 1961 Pittsburgh

Chair: George SlompLocal Arrangements: Barry Shapiro

“Second Conference on Experimental Aspects of NMR Spectroscopy”

At the meeting of NMR spectroscopists in Cleveland in 1960, there wasunanimous agreement that another such meeting would be useful, and thatits format should be expanded to two days. George Slomp, who had led partof the discussion in 1960, agreed to organize a meeting in 1961, and BarryShapiro suggested that Aksel Bothner-By’s group at the Mellon Institute inPittsburgh might host the meeting. Thus began an annual pilgrimage toPittsburgh that lasted ten years.

George is now retired from Upjohn and living in Michigan. He providedsome thoughts and background information but was not able to write thisarticle; at our last contact, he was overwhelmed with snow!

With the advance planning and publicity, this conference attracted 118 participants – well up fromthe 43 who had gathered in Cleveland, but still a small group that comfortably fit into a conferenceroom to encourage informal discussion. The program focused on very practical aspects of NMR,with sessions on Adjustment of Field Shape and Homogeneity; Low Temperature Methods;Field/Frequency Control; Dispersion Mode Spectra; and Spin Decoupling. Much of the time wasdevoted to the results of two surveys – one on Typical Spectrometer Performance, the other onStandards and Referencing. There were no pre-printed abstracts of talks. Instead, some speakersbrought hand-outs showing spectra, block diagrams of instruments, etc.

George Slomp and Barry Shapiro scheduled the two days with ample time forcoffee breaks, a long lunch period, and evenings free for leisurely dinners – alldesigned to permit attendees to share their views and experiences outside theformal sessions. This set the tone for the ambiance that still exists and thatmakes the ENC such a successful and beloved conference. The importantinteraction with and support by vendors began then also. NMR Specialties, afirm near Pittsburgh that manufactured small instruments and accessories [e.g.,pulse programmers and spin decouplers] provided coffee and a marvelous

assortment of doughnuts for coffee breaks during the entire ten years that the ENC met inPittsburgh.

Until 1963, patent protection of nuclear induction made Varian the only company that could marketNMR spectrometers in the US, so ENC participants were users of Varian equipment. The ENC wasscheduled in late February immediately before the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistryand Applied Spectroscopy [now PITTCON] because Varian could send many of its scientists andengineers from Palo Alto. A symbiotic relationship rapidly developed – we wanted their expertiseto deal with day-to-day problems, and they wanted feedback from users. The 1961 Conference washighlighted by a Varian reception and dinner, after which a curtain opened to unveil the A-60 – thefirst commercial instrument with field/frequency control.

Ted Becker

3rd - 1962 Pittsburgh

Chair: David GrantLocal Arrangements: Gus Friedel

“Third Conference on Experimental Aspects of NMR Spectroscopy”[T.C.O.E.A.O.N.M.R.S.]

How Sweet It Was! My reflections on the early ENC Conferences (which were held for a decadein Pittsburgh) include three dominant memories:

First, the format of the conference was more of a panel discussion than that of a formallecture. The speaker’s comments and audience discussion and remarks were merged intoshort debates and idea sharing. These sessions, although heated at times, never seemed tointerfere with an expanding camaraderie. The size of the group undoubtedly illuminated theneed for formality.

Second, the meetings solidified a rapidly growing community of NMR spectroscopists into acohesive group of friends, unified by the taxing experimental challenges that all faced inthese early days. When one discusses the problems of swinging metal restroom doors on theother side of the wall from the magnet lab, one knows the field is its initial stages. Thegroup was small enough that discussion continued often late into night at Samreny’s, theRanch, or some other restaurant in the vicinity of Mellon Institute.

My third recollection deals with the inclement weather in Pittsburgh during the last few daysof February and first few days of March, typical times for the early meetings of the ENC.To fly out of Pittsburgh always seemed to pose a problem like sleeping on the airport floorfor an early morning delayed flight, etc. Such was the case on Saturday, March 2nd 1961,the concluding day of the secondconference chaired by GeorgeSlomp. All flights had beencancelled for the evening of thatday, and I had to be in Columbusthat night. I expressed mycongratulations to George for anexcellent program, and to bepleasant indicated that I would behappy to assist in any waypossible to keep the tradition nowstarted for future years. Thisforced a bus trip during thebusiness session requiring that Ileave around 3-4 PM and travel through West Virginia and into Ohio. There were numerousdelays, but we finally arrived around 10 pm, long overdue and fatigued by the ordeal. Uponmy return to Utah the next week I was chagrined to find out the hazard of leaving themeeting early was to be elected to chair the meeting the following year. Apparently,everyone wanted the group to continue meeting, but only if someone else would do thework. Fortunately, Gus Friedel, at the US Bureau of Mines near Pittsburgh, and theresonators at Mellon Institute provided outstanding support as the arrangements committee,

and many stepped forward to chair a variety of sessions and other duties. The vendors aidedwith expenses.

For these early meetings, there were no formal abstracts, but many individuals brought printedhand-out material, often many pages with great detail. For the 1962 conference – with the lengthyname and abbreviation given above -- these notes, now available in the conference archives on theweb site and the DVD, give a reasonably complete summary of the proceedings. The talks byJames Shoolery on absorption mode 13C spectroscopy and slave recorders stand out to this writer astruly seminal work of great timeliness in the third annual conference. Jim was truly the chemists’advocate for NMR methods in these early days and his data are typical of his unique signature onthe field.

Equally impressive presentations were also made by other contributors, but space limitationsprevent a detailed review of the 40-50 talks. However, the titles of the eight sessions, each chairedby an authority in the field, give a good idea of the scope of the conference:

Paul Bender: New Experimental Applications and Techniques

Paul R. Shafer: New Instrumentation

Stan L. Manatt: Spin-Spin Decoupling

Tom Beukelman: Spectrometers of the A-60 Type (Field Frequency Lock)

Wayne Lockhart: Instrument Trouble Shooting

David W. McCall: Relaxation Phenomena and Measurements

Charles W. Wilson, III: Wide Line N.M.R. Instrumentation & Operation

George Slomp: Interpretation, Storing and Cataloguing of High Resolution N.M.R. Spectral Data

4th - 1963 Pittsburgh

Chair: Charles W. Wilson IIILocal Arrangements: Aksel Bothner-By

“4th Omnibus Conference on the Experimental Aspects ofNuclear-magnetic-resonance Spectroscopy”

[4th OCEANS]

Perhaps there may one day be a few people who are curious to discover just what it was that causedvarious NMR enthusiasts from all over the USA to travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in February.This note is meant for them.

The Fourth Omnibus Conference on the Experimental Aspects ofNuclear-magnetic-resonance Spectroscopy (4th OCEANS) was held atMellon Institute in Pittsburgh for 3 days --- Thursday, Friday & Saturday,February 28 through March 2, 1963.

So far as I know, no national group of lawyers or medical doctors, or even economists orpsychologists or librarians, would opt for a conference in Pittsburgh in mid-Winter. Why not, say,San Diego, or Miami, or Hawaii? Well, NMR experimentalists then were a mostly youngand innocent bunch, and likely worked for organizations that had rather limited funds that they werewilling to spend for travel to NMR spectroscopy meetings. Plus Mellon Institute made their nicePittsburgh facilities available at no cost, and the Hotel Webster Hall was conveniently just acrossthe street from Mellon Institute. ...... Besides, most of our NMR attendees spent so much timeactually listening to the scheduled papers (which ran from 8:15am until 5:00pm and beyond, evenon a Saturday) that few of us really paid much attention to the weather outside.

The year 1963 was in what might be called the Late Iron Age of NMR Spectroscopy. Early NMRworkers used massive electromagnets, consisting of an iron yoke plus copper wire and coppercooling coils, typically weighing a ton or more, that afforded proton NMR spectra at up to 30 MHzor so. Later, similar commercially available iron-magnet NMR spectrometers from VarianAssociates permitted 40 MHz and then 60 MHz proton NMR spectra. Eventually, commerciallyavailable 90 and 100 MHz proton spectrometers became available --- but that was about as high-frequency as one could go using Iron magnets. ........ It was clear that, for many NMR applications,such as proton High Resolution studies of organic compounds, higher static magnetic fields wouldyield clearer and more easily understood NMR spectra. To get such higher magnetic fields, oneneeded to go to superconducting magnets. This happened only somewhat later. ....... Furthermore, in1963, NMR spectrometers were mainly being constructed using old-time vacuum tubes rather thantransistors, etc. Computers for NMR applications were still in their infancy. The exceptional valueof NMR spectroscopy was increasingly being appreciated by academic and industrial chemists, butin 1963 many fine instrumental developments were yet to arrive for NMR spectroscopists.

The committee of 5 persons designated to arrange this Fourth NMR conference in 1963 decidedearly on that we wanted to attract as many as possible of the leading NMR spectroscopists in theUSA and abroad. We immediately went about recruiting as Session Chairmen many of the mostproductive and interesting NMR people then working in the field. I think we did a pretty good job.One of our choices, Paul Lauterbur, later won a Nobel Prize for his remarkably innovative NMRwork.

These Session Chairmen then played an important role in lining up the invited speakers (usually thelonger papers) for their sessions. Shorter, contributed papers --- usually 10 minutes --- were alsosolicited by a general invitation to NMR spectroscopists. We didn't want to exclude anybody thathad something worthwhile to say.

We also wished to attract as many NMR people as possible to attend this conference, and workeddiligently to spread the word about it. Numbers were to be one measure of our success. We seem tohave done a pretty good job. According to figures supplied me by Ted Becker, the analogous NMRConference #3 in 1962 had an attendance of 140, while our NMR Conference #4 in 1963 had297. (Our attendance was also greater than any of the next six such NMR Conferences attained.)

Everybody seemed to have a pleasant time in Pittsburgh at these NMR conferences. It was alwaysfun (and often very helpful) to chat with people from all over the country about their NMR work.Picking up useful working hints, shortcuts, tricks of the trade. A lot of this was done in the breaksbetween sessions during our 3 days of meetings, supplementing the questions possible after eachpaper. ......... We also enjoyed good-eating --- most of us being young, hungry, and on an expenseaccount. Barry Shapiro acquainted several car-loads of us with a suburban Pittsburgh restaurantcalled "The Ranch" which served HUGE, tender, delicious T-bone steaks. It became a tradition formany of us to feast at "The Ranch" on the first night of every Pittsburgh NMR conference weattended. .......... Bill Ritchey, who initiated and hosted the first of these NMR conferences at hisSOHIO lab in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, was of Lebanese descent. He knew a nice Lebaneserestaurant in Pittsburgh that he led several car-loads of us to during each NMR conference, usuallyon the second night. Many delicious, exotic dishes. Most of us had no idea what exactly we wereeating, or what it was called, but we loved it. Bill Ritchey did all the ordering for us, and wemunched on lots of good stuff.

Looking back on the 50 years that these NMR conferences have been held, the transient nature ofthings is evident. The first chairman of these events, Bill Ritchey, is still going strong, but hiscorporate employer (SOHIO) morphed into BP --- and Bill moved his talents into a university. I wasemployed by Union Carbide in 1963 --- but a couple of years later I left for life at a university, andlater Union Carbide was acquired by Dow Chemical. Mellon Institute later transitioned intoCarnegie Mellon University, and these meetings moved from Pittsburgh. Sic transit gloria mundi!

Final comment: I thought "4th OCEANS" was a conference name that provided a certain pizzazz.Not everybody did. There was no "5th OCEANS". .......... This was the inclination of the NMRConference #5 chairman for 1964, Paul Lauterbur. One doesn't argue successfully with a futureNobel Prize winner. So I guess I was wrong.

5th - 1964 Pittsburgh

Chair: Paul LauterburLocal Arrangements: Aksel Bothner-By

“Fifth Experimental NMR Conference” [5th ENC]

Paul Lauterbur was a logical choice to chair the conference in 1964. Longbefore he had thought of NMR imaging, he had done pioneering NMRstudies of 13C, 29Si and other nuclei at Mellon Institute, the site of theconference. He had recently moved to a faculty position at Stony Brook.

Following a succession of lengthy names and acronyms, this was the firstto be called simply Experimental NMR Conference, with the now long-respected initials ENC. By 1964 the conference had become well knownamong NMR practitioners. This was the first to include talks by scientistsfrom outside North America, with speakers and attendees from Sweden,Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the UK.

The program packed a broad range of topics into the two days in February.Many of the talks continued the traditional format of individuals sharing their experience inimproving the operation of mostly high resolution NMR instruments – two sessions on InstrumentMaintenance, Repair, Modification and Operation. Included here was a presentation by RichardErnst and Wes Anderson on “Signal Enhancement by Use of Optimum Performance Parameters” –an analysis of how best to modify slow passage conditions for repetitive scanning and timeaveraging of cw spectra. It would be another year before alternative methods appeared for multi-line spectra, but other talks in 1964 described new pulse programmers for transient studies of spinechoes and chemical exchange.

The concept of breaking the “iron barrier” and developing superconducting magnets for NMR wasan important subject at this ENC. Three talks outlined the requirements for homogeneity and waysof achieving it, and one – by Harry Weaver – described the realization of the concept in the first 200MHz NMR prototype instrument. Partially aligned molecules were discussed long before we heardof protein alignment – by electric field [Waugh, McLauchlan, Hahn] and by liquid crystals [Philips,Englert]. Double resonance and computer analysis of spectra [including LAOCOON II] were alsoon the agenda.

The attendees were expected to want more than good talks, so Aksel Bothner-By, the localarrangements chairman, provided a Guide to Restaurants in the Pittsburgh Area, based on:

Quality Light Noise levelRevolting stygian tomb-likebad dim quietindifferent subdued normalgood well-lit bustlevery good bright noisyfantastic glaring din

Almost 20 restaurants were rated on these factors and such other important matters as the cost of amartini [generally about 75 cents] and the amount of butter served. NMR has certainly advanced,but this restaurant rating scheme seems to be just as valid now as 45 years ago!

Ted Becker

6th - 1965 Pittsburgh

Chair: Charles ReillyLocal Arrangements: Aksel Bothner-By

Charlie Reilly, then of Shell Development Company, Emeryville, CA, was a very importantcontributor to early ENCs. Unfortunately, we have not been able to track him down, so here aresome of my recollections of the 1965 ENC.

NMR was now becoming so broad in scope that the ENC ran three full days. With the limitation ofthe size of the Mellon Institute auditorium, the organizers cautioned in advance: “It now appearsthat it will probably be necessary to limit attendance.” In the end, everyone was accommodated fora very good program. Multiple resonance was a major topic with several ramifications – selectivehomonuclear 1H decoupling and tickling in complex spectra and 1H decoupling for study of 13C.Analysis of complex spectra continued to be of major interest, and problems in the operation of thenew superconducting magnets required attention. An evening was devoted to best approaches toteaching NMR.

Computers were beginning to beckon. Abe Savitsky, an infrared spectroscopist at Perkin-Elmer,was brought in to discuss the intriguing subject of “Curves and Computers.” He showed howdigitized spectra could be processed to improves resolution, signal/noise, integration, etc. Twosessions were devoted to ways of improving signal/noise, always a major concern in NMR. Onenovel approach was presented by a young fellow from Varian: “Sensitivity Improvement by FourierTransform Techniques.” Richard Ernst’s talk was not fully appreciated by many attendees, whowere used to obtaining spectra by sequential scanning and remembered Fourier transforms only assomething from college math courses. It was more familiar to those then beginning to obtain IRspectra with interferometers and FT data processing. It would take quite a while – with substantialimprovements in on-line computers – before Fourier transform methods completely transformed theway NMR spectra were obtained.

It is amusing to note that a single room at the Webster Hall Hotel, just across thestreet from Mellon Institute, had a special rate of $10 per night. If you wanted amore elegant hotel, the Pittsburgh Hilton cost $13-16, and for those on a tight budgetthere was always the YMCA at $5.15. The registration fee for the conference was$7.00.

In line with the precedent set in 1961, Varian sponsored a cocktail party one evening, and NMRSpecialties, located near Pittsburgh, provided coffee and good, fresh doughnuts before the firstsession each morning and during the frequent and lengthy coffee breaks.

Ted Becker

7th - 1966 Pittsburgh

Chair: Aksel Bothner-ByLocal Arrangements: Salvatore Castellano

After several years handling all the local arrangements and creating theenvironment that made ENCs so successful, Aksel Bothner-By took overthe organization of the whole program in 1966. Aksel remains interestedin the ENC, but it was not convenient for him to write a summary of the7th ENC.

There was considerable interest in “less receptive nuclei”, which rangedfrom 13C at natural abundance to nuclei of very low magnetogyric ratio.In “The HR-100 Spectra Almost Everything,” Paul Lauterbur showedhow a proton-only instrument could be adapted to study many types ofnuclei. There were talks on 119Sn NMR and on coupling constants involving a range of heavyatoms. Rex Richards described the major enhancement in signal accompanying dynamic nuclearpolarization.

The most far-reaching improvement in studying 13C came from Richard Ernst’s talk on “CompleteHeteronuclear Spin Decoupling with Random Noise.” He showed that noise-modulation causedrapid spin flips that collapsed doublets in analogy to rapid chemical exchange. For two decades,noise decoupling became the method for obtaining easily interpretable spectra of 13C. 15N and othernuclei, being supplanted only in the 1980s when better understanding of spin behavior led to themultiple pulse sequences used today.

Improved methods for spectral scanning were discussed, ranging from home-made modifications ofinstruments such as the HA-100 to a custom-designed 60 MHz spectrometer based on digitalcontrol to sweep a frequency synthesizer – a major innovation for that time. Most ENC attendeesstudied liquids, but Raymond Andrew came from Nottingham to describe magic angle spinning –“NMR in Solid Phosphorus Compounds by the Rapidly Rotating Specimen Method.” Meanwhile,John Baldeschwieler described ion cyclotron resonance in the gas phase, showing that a treatmentsimilar to Bloch equations described ICR lineshapes resulting from ion-molecule collisions.

Presentation of new pulse techniques and instruments needed for their study were becoming moreprominent at the ENC, with innovative applications of old ideas, such as forced transitoryprecession, Carr-Purcell sequences, rotary echoes and nuclear Overhauser effects. Other papersprovided new insights into the theoretical underpinning of relaxation processes and measurements.

The theory of complex NMR spectra and methods for analyzing such spectra continued to beexplored in a number of papers. The Swalen-Reilly NMRIT method was proposed as an alternativeto the already established LAOCOON approach. Staples, such as ways of teaching NMR, andbetter techniques for variable temperature studies, rounded out a very productive program.

Ted Becker

8th - 1967 Pittsburgh

Chair: Jake StothersLocal Arrangements: Aksel Bothner-By

Upon receiving the invitation from Ted Becker to offer somethoughts on the 8th ENC for which I acted as chairman, my initialreaction was one of wonderment about how I might recall specificdetails of the conference forty-two years ago. It had beensuggested that one might mention a bit about the speakers, theprogram and major NMR advances at that time. After somereflection, however, coupled with the absence of any personalreminder notes, I had the notion that some lasting, generalimpressions of the early ENC meetings might be of interest.

A number of features rendered the early ENCs distinctly differentfrom other conferences to lend a certain character to the

proceedings. From the first meeting with 41 present, attendance increased to an average of about260 over the 1963-69 period. The emphasis on experimental methods and techniques, the relaxedscheduling (two one-hour sessions separated by a 45 minute coffee break, morning and afternoon,with the possibility of an evening session), coupled with the presence of many of the leadingpractitioners of the NMR arts, provided all attendees ample opportunity for informal discussions.Hardly surprisingly, in some cases, these led to later collaborative activities. In the early years,there were few attendees from abroad but, as knowledge of the quality of the ENC meetings spread,this number increased, thereby broadening the interactions available to all. The term “NMR arts”seems appropriate since certain skills required development to obtain optimal experimental resultsin those days preceding the general availability of superconducting magnets and computer control.Terms such as “super-stabilizer,” for example, have long disappeared from use (and, perhaps, evenunderstanding).

Each ENC meeting addressed primary areas under development at the time. The 8th ENC meetingincluded sessions on computer-spectrometer interfacing, multiple resonance, pulse techniques,improving signal detection, less receptive nuclei, oriented molecules, some biological applications,as well as an evening session on “Instructional approaches,” from both industrial and academicviewpoints.

Undoubtedly, the folks behind the scenes at the Mellon Institute were major contributors to thesuccess of these meetings, making sure everything ran smoothly even when there was anoccasional, unforeseen problem.

Not to be overlooked was Aksel’s trusty, informative guide to several dining establishments.

I was surprised to receive the invitation to act as Chairman for the 8th ENC, but I felt honored to beasked. Do you suppose it was because 1967 was Canada’s centennial year andsomeone thought there should be a token Canadian? In any event, Aksel and hiscolleagues did most all of the chores, for which I was very grateful.

9th - 1968 Pittsburgh

Chair: Paul (Dick) ShaferLocal Arrangements: Salvatore Castellano

Paul R. (Dick) Shafer chaired the 9th ENC. According to the Dartmouth web site, he died in 1994,and an undergraduate teaching award has been named in his memory.

The ENC found a happy site at Mellon Institute in 1961 and was always held at the end of February,just before the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, whichattracted major instrument companies. In 1968, a hotel strike in Pittsburgh caused PITTCON tomove to Cleveland, where it remained for many years. The 9th ENC concluded at noon on Saturdayto enable participants to travel to Cleveland.

In retrospect, the big news from this ENC was that the value ofpulses and Fourier transform methods was becoming apparent,and mini-computers were being interfaced to NMRspectrometers. Six talks described various types of on-linecomputers, including the PDP-8, IBM 1800 and 620I, as wellas others. Computer memory was very limited, programmingwas difficult and interfaces were primitive, but progress wasbeing made.

Pulses were being used in many spin echo applications and in studies of diffusion, where EdStejskal described the advantages of a pulsed magnetic field gradient. However, the greatestinnovation was the use of carefully designed pulse cycles to study solids. John Waugh’s talk “HighResolution NMR in Solids?” introduced the idea of a fictitious “average Hamiltonian” under theexperimenter’s control. With this concept, he described a four-pulse cycle [later, but not in thispaper, termed WAHUHA] that caused line narrowing – in a few instances up to three orders ofmagnitude.

This was the first ENC where a conscious effort was made to introduce attendees to the dramaticadvances being made in the use of NMR in biological systems. Oleg Jardtezky organized a sessionthat dealt with such diverse topics as base pairing and base stacking in nucleic acids; enzymebinding sites; paramagnetic shifts in heme proteins; 13C NMR in peptides; and relaxation ofanesthetics binding to cell membranes.

Other areas of emphasis were the rapidly developing study of molecules dissolved in nematicsolvents and the beginning of serious double resonance investigations. Frank Anet described theuse of the nuclear Overhauser effect as a practical tool for organic structure elucidation, and RayFreeman described a double resonance adaption of “hole-burning” with a resolution of 1 millihertz.

Ted Becker

10th - 1969 Pittsburgh

Chair: Ted BeckerLocal Arrangements: Aksel Bothner-By

At the registration mixer for the ENC in 1967, I was chatting withsomeone while enjoying a gin and tonic, when Barry Shapiro came upand asked whether he could interrupt to have me talk with a few people.I soon found myself in the presence of Jake Stothers, Barry, AkselBothner-By and others who comprised the “power structure” of theENC. Aksel suggested that I might be interested in chairing the 1969conference. He pointed out that he would do most of the work atMellon, I would have lots of help from session chairmen and others, andthat I did not have to do anything for over a year! So I agreed, but Ibecame a little concerned the following day when Aksel handed me a3x5 card with one carefully written word:

Of course, it worked out just fine. The session chairmen and I put together aprogram that covered the major issues in NMR. “Computer” continued to bea buzzword. Several new programs to deal with magnetic equivalence weredescribed in the session Computers in the Analysis of High Resolution NMR Spectra, while thesession Online Computers in NMR dealt with interfaces, computer control, an FT accessory for theVarian HR-220, and new digital spectrometers for liquids and solids. On the other hand, Freemanand Hill showed how to measure relaxation of individual lines without a computer, using instead anon-selective inversion pulse and a selective detection system.

In addition to the Varian HR-220, a number of supercon magnets were being assembled in variouslabs. Dadok, Anet and Richards each described their versions. Dynamic nuclear polarization wasexplored from many angles – induced optically, chemically, thermally and by free radical reactions.New multiple pulse methods for solids permitted the measurement of chemical shift anisotropies, sothat emerging area was explored by Haeberlen, Lauterbur, VanderHart and Hindermann. NMRstudy of molecules oriented in nematic solvents was an active research area, giving rise to five talks.

With noise modulated and single frequency decoupling and FT methods, study of 13C in naturalabundance was popular, and advanced techniques for such study were covered in a number of talks.Other applications of double resonance and various methods for facile measurement of relaxationtimes also continued to be of great interest.

In the early ENCs, all speakers from North America were expected to pay their own travel andregistration fee. However, we could usually provide travel expenses for a very few foreignscientists, courtesy of various Government grants. When I asked leading figures for advice ontopics and speakers, Ray Freeman alerted me to Endel Lippmaa, of Estonia, whose work was thenalmost unknown in the West. I invited Lippmaa as one of four European speakers, and beganmonths of correspondence. It was not hard then to obtain a visa to enter the US, but it was verydifficult and time-consuming to get an exit visa from the Soviet Union. Lippmaa was scheduled togive two talks, but a few days before the ENC I received a cable [that was the e-mail of the day!]IMPOSSIBLE TO ATTEND CONFERENCE THANK YOU FOR THE INVITATION

He finally got to the ENC in 1977.

11th - 1970 Pittsburgh

Chair: Tom FlauttLocal Arrangements: Salvatore Castellano

The conference was held in April this year, a much better choice thanthe traditional February date, which usually meant cold, snowy weather.The major topics were New Pulse and Fourier Transform Techniques,Superconducting Spectrometers, and Computer-Spectrometer Inter-facing and Software.

New Pulse and Fourier Transform Techniques. In the first talk of theconference, Richard Ernst reported on his work to improve thesensitivity of NMR by using stochastic excitation. I remember thispaper for its clear mathematical explanation of the difference betweenspectroscopy using a single frequency and multiple frequency excitationproduced by random pulses, which results in improved Signal/Noise.This work is mentioned in Ernst’s Nobel Prize Biography: We developed at that time alsostochastic resonance as an alternative to pulse FT spectroscopy employing binary pseudo-randomnoise sequences for broadband excitation, correlating input and output noise. Similar work wasdone simultaneously by Prof. Reinhold Kaiser at the University of New Brunswick. Kaiser gave thesecond talk where he presented the results mentioned above.

Other papers on Wednesday discussed other ways of optimizing pulse and FT techniques. Ofparticular interest were techniques which made obtaining 13C spectra more routine, because of theincrease in S/N.

Super Conducting Spectrometers Three groups reported on in-house developed spectrometers.Speakers from Dow, Mellon Institute and UCLA detailed challenges in getting good fieldhomogeneity, field/frequency control, and use of multiple frequencies to detect 1H, 2H, 11B, 13C, and31P spectra. The fields were high enough to detect 1H spectra in the range of 220-250 MHz, abouttwice what was commonly obtained at that time with electromagnets.

Computer-Spectrometer Interfacing and Software. The interfacing was made possible by theavailability of minicomputers such as: Hewlett Packard 2115*, DEC PDP-8, and IBM 1800. Themost common application of the minicomputers was to control the field/frequency and to sumrepeated spectra for increased S/N. The software application used an IBM 360 to analyze complexprotein spectra taken at 220 MHz, using a curve fitting program. *I looked up the memory of thiscomputer—it had a maximum of 32K 16 bit words! Imagine what could have been done with a PC.

Other Topics New developments in the study of oriented molecules-- Liquid crystal solvents allowed

dipole-dipole interactions to be measured and sometimes molecular conformation. Resolution enhancement in Solids by Magnetic Dilution Water Mobility by NMR in a number of biological and gel-like systems.

Quadrupole effects in NMR and Pure Quadrupole Detection

JEOL announced a “table top” spectrometer which detected 1H at 100 MHz, with automaticfield/frequency control. It was JEOL’s 100 MHz answer to the Varian A60, which had beendeveloped in 1961.

12th - 1971 Gainesville

Chair: Bob LundinLocal Arrangements: Wallace Brey

Bob Lundin chaired the 12th ENC, but he preferred not to write about the conference – deferring toWallace Brey, who handled local arrangements for this first ENC to be held outside Pittsburgh inten years. Here is Wallace’s account of just how that change in location occurred:

The early ENC's in Pittsburgh were all scheduled for the weekends before or after the PittsburghConference. However, the hotel workers in Pittsburgh went on strike and that meeting was movedto Cleveland. I can remember standing beside some members of the ENC Committee during abreak in the 10th ENC, looking out the window at the falling snow when someone asked, “Why dowe continue to come to Pittsburgh in weather like this when the other meeting [PITTCON] is nothere anymore?” I rather rashly commented that Florida would be a better choice, and I wassurprised to find next day that the committee decided to take me up on this suggestion.

So I became the Local Arrangements Chairman for the 12th ENC, which was held on the campus ofthe University of Florida. Fortunately, I had willing and able student, post-doc, faculty andsecretarial assistants, particularly the help of Roy King and Kate Scott, to make the job easier. Aserious problem was presented by one speaker who continued to talk on and on past the time whenour reservation of the auditorium ended. To avoid having him mobbed by the inrush of studentswaiting to see a movie, I had to physically take the microphone from him.

An interesting aspect of the Gainesville meeting concerns the Universityof Florida NMR instrumentation. We had ordered an XL-100instrument from Varian, and the console and 15-inch magnet had beendelivered previously, but there were still some parts missing. When thefolks at Varian realized the ENC was to be in Gainesville, they shippedthe missing parts, which included some of the RF plug-ins, parts of thedecoupler system and the final version of the probe. To make certain

everything was properly installed, they also sent an engineer who had done much of the designwork. The weekend before the meeting, he and Roy King had to drive to Jacksonville airport to findthe missing parts, which had somehow become stalled there. How many demos of the XL followed,I do not know, but Bruker was at a slight disadvantage, for their engineers could only talk abouttheir new 90 MHz systems.

The principal themes of this conference were:

New commercial instruments for multi-nuclear operation: Varian XL-100; Bruker HFX-90;JEOL PS-100

Advances in FT methods [not yet implemented in commercial instruments]

Superconducting magnets

13C NMR, which dominated the conference. Fully half of the talks involved 13C – studieswith commercial and supercon instruments; use of FT methods; relaxation measurementsand mechanisms

Wallace BreyLocal Arrangements Chairman

13th - 1972 Asilomar

Chair: Barry ShapiroLocal Arrangements: Bob Lundin

Barry Shapiro chaired the 13th ENC. We have exchanged e-mail,and I had a long telephone conversation with him at his home inBellingham, WA. He gave me some information and photos butinsisted that I write this article.

Barry was responsible for arranging the two most popular sites ofthe ENC. He was at the first NMR spectroscopists meeting inCleveland in 1960 and suggested that Mellon Institute mightwelcome this incipient conference in 1961. It did, and the ENCstayed for ten years. In 1970, Barry was asked to chair the 1972ENC, and he began thinking about a site. It had already beendecided that the ENC would meet in Gainesville in 1971, and theinitial idea was that it could return to Pittsburgh in 1972. Butduring a sabbatical at Stanford, Barry had learned of the Asilomarconference grounds – a place that few of the ENC attendees hadever heard of. Barry presented a glowing picture and pointed outthat an ENC to accommodate scientists in the western US waslong overdue. Feedback from a questionnaire resulted in a decision to meet at Asilomar at the endof April 1972. Of course, Asilomar turned out to be everything that Barry said and more. The 50th

ENC is the twentieth to be held at Asilomar.

So, how was Barry rewarded for his initiative? He arrived a day early to finalize arrangements,promptly fell down a staircase and broke his leg! He pointed out that it occurred in the aptly namedBREAKERS. Asilomar is not the best place to run a conference with one’s leg in a cast. But Lee –the charming and dutiful spouse – soon arrived in a rental car and served as chauffeur and aide intransporting the Chairman among the many buildings.

The schedule of the conference was designed to showcase the natural beauty of the site, with two ofthree afternoons free. The penalty was talks until 10 pm, even after the cocktail party and banqueton Wednesday. The six talks that evening were serious – including Erwin Hahn, Alex Pines[“Proton-Enhanced Nuclear Induction Spectroscopy”], and Al Redfield among the speakers.

Asilomar provided the space and ambience to permit vendor “exhibit areas” – now hospitality suites– and initiate a continuing tradition and partnership. In 1972 there were six vendors: Varian, JEOL,Bruker, Wilmad, Nicolet, and Perkin-Elmer.

In the midst of all this, there was time for a very good technical program. Three sessions weredevoted to advances in NMR in studies of biological molecules, one of them limited to 13C inmacromolecules. NMR practitioners had discovered lanthanide induced shifts, and Jack Robertschaired two sessions devoted to the use of such shift reagents. Other talks reported investigationsusing paramagnetic metal ions, including shiftless relaxation agents. Pulse Fourier transformmethods were highlighted in many talks, both for 1H and for a plethora of nuclei other thanhydrogen, and as a means of measuring both 1H and 13C relaxation in a variety of molecules. In apost-deadline paper, Joe Dadok unveiled “Correlation NMR Spectroscopy – a Bridge between FTand CW NMR Techniques?”

Ted Becker

14th - 1973 Boulder

Chair: Tom FarrarLocal Arrangements: Mel Hanna

The 14th ENC was held in Boulder, Colorado in early April 1973. It is hardto believe that 36 years have passed since the time of that meeting. Thatmeeting was memorable for several reasons. At that meeting several of usmet to incorporate the ENC meeting. We decided to incorporate in the stateof New Jersey, where I then lived, so I could become the “resident agent.”One of the reasons for incorporating was that the attendance at the meetingwas growing larger every year and the amount of money being handled byour treasurer, Ernest Lustig, was also growing rapidly. Prior to that meetingErnest handled all of the finances through his own private bank account.He was nervous about his financial liability in the event of problems. So atthat meeting we officially became a New Jersey corporation.

Since the meeting was held in Boulder, Colorado (home of the Universityof Colorado), many of us had hoped to spend some time in Rocky Mountain National Park. In earlyApril, however, most of the roads in the park were not open because of heavy snow.

The meeting was a very exciting one becausesuperconducting magnets were justbecoming available. One entire session wasdevoted to recent advances in “high field”NMR. Sir Rex Richards presented anexcellent paper on the first results for 270MHz proton NMR studies at the Oxford Enzyme Institute using an Oxford Instruments magnet and amodified Bruker console. Several other papers were presented on recently assembled NMRinstruments. Most of these instruments featured a combination of a magnet, a data acquisition systemand a spectrometer, each often made by a different manufacturer. These new high field results werevery exciting since most NMR spectra in 1973 were taken with instruments using electromagnets witha proton NMR frequency of 100 MHz.

Solid state experiments were in their infancy and a number of novel sensitivity enhancement schemeswere described such as the Proton-Enhanced Nuclear Induction Spectroscopy method presented byJohn Waugh from MIT. In addition to Fourier Transform NMR (FTNMR) a number of other methodswere also being developed at that time including correlation NMR and Hadamard NMR studies. Withthe advent of faster, cheaper computers and much cheaper computer memory, these methods lost theiradvantages and were not further developed. Fortunately, a recently published book “Pulse and FourierTransform NMR” was now available to neophytes who were looking forward to entering this excitingnew field of high field FT-NMR.

15th - 1974 Raleigh

Chair: Wallace BreyLocal Arrangements: Charles Moreland

I had the privilege of being designated chair of the 15th ENC to be at NCState in Raleigh. The biggest part of the work for that meeting was donevery effectively by Charles Moreland, the Local Arrangements Chair, whoincidentally, had been my student at Florida several years earlier. Themeeting featured the usual excellent talks by Rex Richards, Ray Freemanand Richard Ernst, but there were no special themes.

There are several striking memories I have of particular incidents at earlyENC's of which I will mention two that were signposts for the developmentof NMR. At an early Pittsburgh meeting, one speaker from DuPontdescribed the excellent results they were obtaining on their pioneeringsuperconducting system, which had been custom-built by Varian. At the following coffee break, Ioverheard one of the audience say: “You'll never get a system like that in my laboratory. They blowup and kill people.” The second incident I recall is the breathless entrance to the meetingauditorium of Paul Lauterbur with an armfull of Xerox copies of the first NMR images he hadobtained, showing sections through some fruits and vegetables.

Paul Luterbur’s talk at the 1974 ENC had important consequences. He showed an image of amouse, obtained with the back-projection method that he had pioneered – then the only way toobtain NMR images. For that period, the image was not too bad, but there was a large white spot inthe center – an artifact of the back projection method. Richard Ernst was excited by Lauterbur’stalk and the concept of imaging but realized that he could overcome the artifact. As he said later, “Iimmediately recognized that time domain experiments with switched magnetic field gradients incomplete analogy to 2D spectroscopy would be the method of choice.” This led to directly to 2DFourier imaging, which is now the basis of almost all medical MRI.

16th - 1975 Asilomar

Chair: Jerry SwalenLocal Arrangements: Bob Lundin

As a suggestion Chuck Wade proposed to have Chairmen of each meeting give a summary of theirmeeting. Ted Becker was kind enough to send me the abstracts for the 16th ENC in 1975 to review.This was so helpful because it had been 34 years since the conference, which was undergoingsomething of a transition.

Relaxation measurements on proton systems gave way to measurements by carbon-13 systems. Anumber of cross relaxations systems were studied as well as spin polarizations experiments. Broadline systems were studied -- e.g., polymers as well as molecules on surfaces. Lanthanide shiftreagents were developed. All sorts of biomolecules were studied by NMR. The use of computerswas just beginning.

Paul Lauterbur developed Zeugmatography (1973) and today it is used as MRI in most hospitals. In1975, Waldo Hinshaw described a novel approach in “Scanned Sensitive Point Zeugmatography.”Among the very many other eminent NMR speakers, the legendary Erwin Hahn talked about“Deuteronomy” – new methods for measurement of deuterium nuclear quadrupole coupling atnatural abundance in organic compounds. Rex Richards described 31P NMR studies in intactmuscle and adrenal glands at 31P frequencies up to 129 MHz.

This was the second ENC to be held at Asilomar. Attendees appreciated the ambianceand natural beauty of the site, and vendors recognized the opportunities to expand thenumber of hospitality suites and to develop individual styles for these sites across thebroad Asilomar “campus.” The large instrument companies could show the latestspectra and sometimes bring spectrometers, magnets or accessories. Sample tubes andisotopes were illustrated with samples and brochures. In 1975, Myra Gordon set upthe Merck Isotopes suite, which quickly became the pace-setter for a pleasant andgracious environment where attendees could drink, munch and chat until the weehours.

17th - 1976 Pittsburgh

Chair: George LevyLocal Arrangements: Aksel Bothner-By

George Levy, well known for his early work and his book on 13C NMR, chaired the 17th ENC.George’s later work moved away from NMR into data processing, and he moved to Infomatrix Inc.,a data consulting firm, in 1994 and subsequently disappeared from our radar. So, I will provide afew comments about this ENC.

In 1976, the ENC returned to its former home for ten years – theMellon Institute in Pittsburgh. This time it was held on April 25-29,not the late February period that characterized most of the earlierENCs. The weather was much better! The Webster Hall Hotel, acrossthe street from Mellon, still housed most participants, but it also nowhoused 12 hospitality suites. As I recall, excellent doughnuts were stillfeatured at coffee breaks. Aksel Bothner-By did his usual superb jobin local arrangements.

The 17th ENC marked the first real poster session. In 1975 there had been an informal postersession during one of the free afternoons, but with no program or abstracts. In 1976 there were 29posters during a two-hour session that also featured sherry.

The year 1976 celebrated the bicentennial of American independence, and in the run-up to July 4,the word “bicentennial” was used in ads and titles everywhere. The ENC was no exception. Therewere two Bicentennial Sessions, neither of which seemed to have any relevance to history orindependence. Ray Freeman gave “Bicentennial Lecture 1,” a description of the new DANTE pulsetechnique and some applications. His abstract also included what was probably the first of hisclever adaptations of cartoons – this one from a 1950 issue of Punch.

The program included sessions on excitation techniques – 2D pulse FT, rapid scan correlationmethods, chirp pulses, and ways to minimize water signals. The last was becoming increasinglyimportant as biological applications became more prominent, taking up most of two half days at thisENC. Methods for improving sensitivity continued to be a priority, particularly as more attentionwas given to a wide range of nuclei – both subjects covered at this conference. Advances insupercon magnets were covered in several talks.

The rapidly developing field of high resolution NMR is solids was featured in a half-day sessionchaired by John Waugh [amusingly misprinted in the program as “J. S. Wangle”]. This includedanalyses of multiple pulse methods to narrow 1H lines, as well as several 13C studies. Schaefer andStejskal reported on 13C cross polarization studies of polymers in which they had now added magicangle spinning to remove effects of chemical shift anisotropy – the beginning of a powerful methodthat would be widely exploited.

Ted Becker

18th - 1977 Asilomar

Chair: Paul EllisLocal Arrangements: Lois Durham

The 18th Experimental NMR Conference seems a long time ago, in fact31 years ago. The science, as usual, was outstanding and as I recall theweather was also nice. I was on sabbatical leave from the University ofSouth Carolina at that time in Professor John Waugh’s lab at MIT whenI organized the scientific portion of the conference. I recall Johncomplaining that his phone bill for the lab was the highest it had everbeen. What I remember most of all were a couple of firsts with respectto some of the speakers. The ENC for several years had tried to haveProfessor Endel Lippmaa from Estonia as an invited speaker. Duringthe cold war it was always a tentative as to whether an invited speakerfrom Soviet-dominated countries would be allowed to visit the US.After several failed attempts he was allowed to travel that year and oneof first stops he made was the Waugh lab. During his visit at John’s labhe met and visited with another Estonian Matti Maricq. Professor

Lippmaa presented a seminar in John’s office and then we went out to a memorable dinner thatevening. We met again at Asilomar and he gave an outstanding presentation at the meeting.

Another first was an abstract submission by the well known gentleman’s scientist Professor F. S. deBouragas. His abstract described a miraculous spectrometer, which seemed to violate the 3rd law ofthermodynamics (a rough French version of which is presented within references given in theabstract). Unfortunately, Professor de Bouragas was unable to attend the meeting and his talk hadto be cancelled to the disappointment of several members of the audience, one of whom even worea tie for the presentation. Talk about being old fashioned!

The hospitality suites were also excellent, but I don’t remember many of the details of thediscussions that occurred at the suites; must be old age. In some respects it was “easy” to puttogether the program. But what made the ENC really successful was the local arrangements peoplewho made it all work. Now we employ a service to make all of this happen. However, in thosedays (for the west coast) it was Lois Durham and Woody Conover.

So with that I simply close by wishing the ENC a happy 50th birthday and with the hope of manymore to come.

19th - 1978 Blacksburg

Chair: LeRoy JohnsonLocal Arrangements: Harry Dorn

The 19th ENC: April 1978, it was a long time ago, but some thingsstill stand out. I recall the day in 1976 at the 17th ENC when I wasasked if I would be willing to have my name entered as a candidatefor chair of the 19th ENC. Without enough thought, I said, “sure”.Later that day I was informed that I was elected.

My first job was to find a place in the Eastern USA that couldaccommodate our expected roughly 500 registrants. Of course, itshould be as nice as Asilomar, great facilities, cheap, easy to get to,and have an energetic local arrangements chairman. Covering mostof those requirements, I luckily found (I don’t remember how)Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, VA. Harry Dorn ofVPI agreed to be local arrangements chair and he did a great job.

My next job was to select session topics for the meeting and solicit session chairs. I looked at pastENC programs and thought about what was new in experimental NMR. The field at that time wasjust beginning to explore applications in 2D FT NMR. We had a splendid session chaired by BobVold with outstanding talks by Ray Freeman and by Richard Ernst, who would later win the 1991Nobel Prize in Chemistry for NMR methodology.

Imaging by NMR, especially of large objects such as humans, was just getting started. There hadbeen no imaging sessions at previous ENC meetings. There were short talks by Paul Lauterbur onimaging (then called zeugmatography) at the 14th and 15th ENCs, there was a talk on imaging byWaldo Hinshaw in a session on “New Experimental Techniques” which I chaired at the 16th ENC,and there was a poster presentation by Paul Lauterbur at the 18th ENC. I asked Ted Becker to chairan imaging session and he did a great job recruiting both Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield, wholater shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine for NMR imaging. They gave excellent talks. Notknowing enough about past history, I also asked Ted to consider a talk by Raymond Damadian. Heagreed to ask him – unfortunately, Damadian accepted. Sadly, it turned out to be a campaign talkfor his “invention” of NMR imaging.

We had two fine poster sessions, which were organized by Woody Conover. Of course, much ofthe exchange of information on ENC related topics took place in the hospitality suites, which arealways generously provided by our beloved vendors.

All in all, it was a great experience for which I owe a debt of gratitude to all the session chairs,speakers, and poster presenters. I enjoyed very much working with all of our ENC committeemembers.

20th - 1979 Asilomar

Chair: Ken WilliamsonLocal Arrangements: Bob Lundin

The 1979 ENC was held at Asilomar as it had been in1975 and 1977, thus beginning the pattern of meetinghere on odd-numbered years. Dr. Myra Gordon wasthe Treasurer. A Mount Holyoke graduate, she wasbest known at these meetings for the Merck suite inAcacia and her great collection of single malt scotches.Aksel Bothner-By, who introduced me to NMR in 1955when he was teaching at Harvard, was the Secretary. Itwas Bob Lundin, the Local Arrangements Chairman,who was, as I recall, instrumental in arranging for FelixBloch to speak to us about Reminiscences on theDiscovery of NMR, only the 2nd after-dinner speakerwe had had. He received the Nobel Prize in 1952. Youwill recognize the names of those on the committee 30 years ago: Harry Dorn, Bob Griffin, HowardHill, Leroy Johnson, Bob Lichter, Gary Maciel, Alex Pines, Dave VanderHart, and Nino Yannoni.

Some of our speakers were Dan Traficante, Jake Schaefer, Bob Griffin, Gary Maciel, MikeBarfield, Waldo Hinshaw, Laurie Hall, Chris Dobson, Eric Oldfield, Jim Prestegard, Paul Ellis,Lloyd Jackman….

Wokaun gave a paper co-authored by Richard Ernst, who was not in attendance that year, on two-dimensional Fourier techniques. They indicated the technique gave promise for the elucidation ofcomplex exchange networks, as indeed it did. Ray Freeman followed with a paper entitled SomeEarly Baroque Pulse Sequences. To quote his abstract “Early exploratory work appears to confirmthe hypothesis of Murphy that the number of possible pulse sequences greatly outweighs thenumber with useful practical applications.” It was always a treat to enjoy the dry wit and Punchdrawings of a Freeman paper.

Paul Lauterbur presented a poster on 31P zeugmatography, the catchy name he gave what we nowknow as NMR imaging. Raymond Andrew gave a paper on the zeugmatography of a human handand wrist. His 128 X 128 picture elements with an 8 cm diameter aperture did not hint to me ofwhole body imaging, but the year before Ray Damadian “proved” to us with photos from thestudent newspaper that he had built the first whole body imaging system, probably the mostamazing paper I ever heard at an ENC. Also in 1978, Peter Mansfield described the beginnings ofecho-planar imaging. In 1979, Kurt Wüthrich, not in attendance, was a co-author of a poster backin the days when wine and cheese was served at the poster sessions. John Pople, an early ENCattendee in Pittsburgh, Mansfield, Ernst, Lauterbur, and Wüthrich were all Nobel laureates, as wasEd Purcell, who gave the after-dinner talk in 1984 at the 25th ENC.

Less than 3 months before our meeting, in San Francisco George Moscone, the mayor, and HarveyMilk of the board of supervisors had been assassinated. Diane Feinstein then took over as mayor.

The ENC was an all-volunteer organization in 1979. My wife, Louise, made room assignmentshere. She was highly amused, if not shocked, at some of the pairings. We were a wild bunch!

21st - 1980 Tallahassee

Chair: Gary MacielLocal Arrangements: George Levy

Twenty-nine years ago!!! As with all of the ENCs I have attended duringthe past 47 years, the 21st was scientifically very stimulating. Although,as far as I know, there were no already awarded Nobel Prizes representedat the 21st ENC, three of the speakers (Richard Ernst, Paul Lauterbur andKurt Wüthrich) and one co-author on a poster (Peter Mansfield)subsequently received the Nobel Prize (or a share of it) for work thatwas closely related to the research described at our conference (and therewere one or two additional speakers who perhaps could, or should, haveshared a Prize). That’s rather impressive evidence for the high quality ofthe presentations!

Many other ‘major figures’ in NMR made presentations. Theseincluded: a) Dave VanderHart, who talked about resolution limits in CP-MAS 13C NMR; b) JakeSchaefer, who talked about separated-local-field experiments in the 13C MAS context; c) WiebrenVeeman, who presented early 13C CP-MAS results on biological solids; d) Stan Opella, who alsogave a good preview of possibilities for ‘high-resolution’ solid-state NMR in the study of biologicalmacromolecules; e) Colin Fyfe, who presented a CP-MAS probe design that introduced possibilitiesfor low-temperature measurements, with f) in a separate talk, an application described by ‘Nino’Yannoni to the characterization of carbonium ions; g) Ray Freeman, who presented some newselective pulse sequences (as well as his usual supply of witty and relevant cartoons); h) ‘Gitte’Vold, whose presentation described approaches for multiple quantum coherences; i) GeoffreyBodenhausen, who examined indirect detection; j) John Waugh, who examined the best ways toaccomplish proton decoupling; k) Gareth Morris, who described INEPT; l) Myer Bloom, m) HansSpiess, n) Bob Griffin and o) Alex Vega, all of whom described various aspects or applications of2H NMR in solids; p) Frank Anet, who examined fundamental aspects (e.g., rotational diffusion) of‘small’ molecules in solution; q) Henry Resing, who presented pioneering NMR studied ofadsorbed species; r) David Hoult, who described technical developments in NMR imaging, as wellas high-resolution probe design for biological samples; s) Joe Dadok, who described his and AkselBothner-By’s experience with a 600 MHz spectrometer (the highest-field high-resolution system inthe world at that time, as far as I know); and t) George Levy, u) Paul Ellis and v) Don Alderman(with Dave Grant), all of whom made presentations describing advancements in probe design.

As is customary at ENCs, there were numerous posters of note. Several posters (not fromcommercial vendors) focused on data processing (hardware and software).

Of interest is how the perspective has changed so dramatically regarding magnetic field strength.Several abstracts of the 1980 ENC refer to 270 MHz – 400 MHz (1H frequency) as “high field” or“very high field”; today, it is hard to find a spectrometer vendor willing to sell a spectrometer below400 MHz!

Another feature of the 21st ENC, which had already become characteristic of the ENC, was thevendor hospitality suites (sometimes demonstrating live spectrometers). Especially noteworthy wasthe suite organized and charmingly operated by Myra Gordon, then affiliated with Merck Sharp andDohme of Canada (a corporate entity that apparently no longer exists in that form). Indeed,numerous vendors of NMR equipment and supplies of 1980 no longer exist in the same corporateforms. They are missed!!

22nd - 1981 Asilomar

Chair: Gerd LamarLocal Arrangements: Woody Conover

My clearest memory of the 22nd ENC was the time spent at Myra'sMerck suite, “the place to be” for getting together with friendsunder a relaxed atmosphere late in the evening. Myra was theultimate host and her brandy goblets generously filled withCourvoisier (and a big handful of M&Ms, as well as the ambiancein her suite) is indelibly etched on my mind (but I could beconfusing this with one of several other ENCs at Asilomar . . .). Tome, the Merck suite had an added attraction, in that I discoveredthat I actually graduated from the same High School and sat in thesame Home Room, with Myra Gordon! That Merck hospitality

suite tradition was ultimately terminated to the great loss to the entire ENC community. It is ashame that only a fraction of today's numerous attendees were able to experience this novelphenomenon. Those who did experience it have much for which to be thankful!

1981 exhibited several similarities to 2009 in the political/economic climate of the nation. Thecountry in 1981 was in a recession and inflation was rampant. A typical bank CD offered 14% butthis was compromised by ~16% interest on a mortgage. There was political strife with the MiddleEast, with the staff of the U.S. Embassy completing a year as hostages in Tehran. Additionally, anew President was just inaugurated who represented a very substantial change in philosophy fromthat of his predecessor. Some of the positive outcomes in 1981 were the release of the embassyhostages in Tehran and, at least, in my opinion, the popularization of "Jelly Belly" beans. Theenacted policies in the 80's of trickle-down economics, unfortunately, did very little for the majorityof the population. My hope is that more enlightened resolutions to our present political/economicwoes are pending.

The 22nd ENC represented a minor milestone in that it was the first to have over 500 participants.To current ENC attendees with over 1,000 participants, this may seem quaint. However, theincrease in ENC attendance, spurred by the remarkable, and to some degree unanticipatedadvancement of NMR theory/experiment and its broad applications, which started in the 80's andcontinue unabated to the present, has led to a loss of some of the intimacy of the early ENCs. AsChair, it was once possible to greet every participant at the registration desk. The registration feewas ~$10, but all manpower for the registration, audio-visual services for the talks, and poster set-ups were provided by the graduate students/postdocs, generally from Bay Area research groups.

The scientific program consisted of 7 sessions of lectures, 2 poster sessions and a panel discussionthat covered a variety of new and/or improved NMR methods and their applications to chemical andbiological systems. The 28 elapsed years have dimmed my recollections of the lecture/sessioncontent (and inspection of the abstracts has not helped), with three notable exceptions. BothRichard Ernst and Ray Freeman provided outstanding Plenary lectures on the principles of multiplequantum spectroscopy and two-dimensional NMR, respectively. The longer duration than normallecture times allowed both Richard and Ray to present excellent overviews of the intricacies andgreat potential of modern NMR. Of course, the latter lecture was peppered with the witty andappropriate classic cartoons that have become characteristic of Ray's inspired presentations. Thethird event was the intensive and informative panel discussion of the integration of general,multipurpose computers into the NMR laboratory. Up to this time, each vendor provided a differentdedicated computer and software that were incompatible with each other.

23rd - 1982 Madison

Chair: Nino YannoniLocal Arrangements: Tom Farrar

The 1982 ENC started on Monday, April 25 and ended Thursday,April 29 at noon. Every detail for the meeting, from finances toattendance, was decided by the ENC Committee. There was noexternal organization like the one now so ably run by Judith Sjoberg.Bob Lichter (treasurer), Bob Bryant (secretary) and Tom Farrar (localarrangements) were key players in running that ENC. Tom Farrarhad an especially stressful job since he not only arrangedaccommodations and details for the meeting, but that year acted as a“gatekeeper”, to ensure that attendance did not exceed thecommittee’s guidelines. A major concern was that the ENC wasgetting too big and might lose some of its flavor if this growthcontinued. There was discussion about limiting attendance, a touchy business at best - committeemeetings were tense. A note from Bob Bryant recalls that “While we lamented the loss of smallmeeting intimacy, we decided that the field was growing so that the meeting should grow to supportit. Of course we still were careful to emphasize that this was a meeting about experimentalapproaches, new methods, etc., not about results obtained with tried and true methods.”

One reason for the attendance crunch was that a plethora of techniques born in the mid-70s hadgrown at a furious pace: high-resolution in the solid state, multi-dimensional and multiple quantumspectroscopy and imaging. Advances in the use of composite pulse sequences were new and led totension over who had done what first. “Myra’s” suite, a.k.a. the Merck, Sharpe and Dohme ofCanada, Ltd. hospitality suite, was running at full speed, and was the place to see and be seen. Ithad been for many years the most popular place to hang out in the evening. There were noorganized evening events apart from the dinner and speaker on Wednesday night and we wereindeed fortunate to have the eloquent Charles Slichter as our after-dinner speaker. The “ice cream”suite instituted by IBM Instruments in the late 70s was just getting going.

Tom Farrar, who chaired the 1973 ENC, noted that by 1982, “the growth of the ENC meeting wasamazing. In addition to the number of people attending, the number of corporate sponsors had alsoincreased, from twelve in 1973 to twenty-five in 1982; many of those sponsors are no longer in theNMR business.” A comment sent by Bob Lichter pretty much sums up how I personally feel aboutthe ENC as an institution: “More generally, I owe a lot to the ENC. Besides learning a great deal, Igot connected with some great people, who were helpful especially at the early stages of my career,and were fun besides. People actually took me seriously, even before I had enough confidence todo so myself. Those connections opened some doors for me as well.”

Personally, I am looking forward to reconnecting at this ENC with some of the very people who didthose same things for me – see you there!

I cannot close without mentioning two good friends, Gitte Vold, from UC San Diego, who chairedthe 1983 and 1998 ENCs, and who died in 1999, as her career was really taking off, and BobVaughan, from Cal Tech, who died in a plane crash in 1979 and who was one of the earliest toapply solid-state NMR methods to materials science.

Gitte Vold, July 2,1937-April 11, 1999

24th - 1983 Asilomar

Chair: Gitte VoldLocal Arrangements: Lynne Batchelder

This report should have been written by Regitze (Gitte) Vold, Chair of the24th ENC. Regrettably, Gitte died in a tragic accident in April 1999, not yethaving reached her 62nd birthday. Those of us who knew her not only werevery much influenced by her many scientific accomplishments but also wereaffected by her generosity, her openness, and her recurrent good cheer. Shecontinues to be missed.

Reviewing the 24th ENC program brought back memories long dormant.Twenty-seven companies supported the conference, and others hadhospitality suites. Many had participated since the first ENC, and animpressive number still take part. The oral and poster presentations as usualbrought out the newest experimental developments of the day. Multi-

dimensional NMR spectroscopy was just emerging as a practical technique, broadband decouplingtechniques and applications were moving into adolescence, and solid-state techniques werebeginning to yield practical outcomes. Themes included “NMR Techniques for Polymers and OtherLarge Systems,” “Spin Dynamics and Coherence Transfer,” “Two-Dimensional Techniques,”“NMR in Solids,” and the usual array of laboratory-modified probes, pulse sequences, and dataanalyses. Indeed, the interplay between spectroscopists in their laboratories, who were constantlyimproving experimental techniques, and the vendors, who relied on these efforts for their ownproducts, converged here.

What remains impressive is how much was accomplished using techniques that today seemprimitive, perhaps even quaint. Clearly, this reflects the insight and ingenuity of the scientists of theday, many of whom continue to be leaders a quarter century later. Indeed, the strongest impressionsafter 25 years are not of the science but of the people, an extraordinarily open group of women andmen who were also fun to be with.

Highlights, as usual, were the hospitality suites and the Wednesdaybanquet. The former, of course, were where much of the work was done,fueled by food, wine and beer, and topped off with brandy, M&Ms, andcharades. The banquet at the 24th ENC was especially memorable becauseof the reminiscences of a true pioneer, the marvelously witty Erwin Hahn,who peppered his presentation with jokes that were so bad they weregreat! (“Are you a Christian Scientist?” “No, I’m a Jewish scientist.”Semiotics before the term was invented!).

To paraphrase George Burns, ENC attendees have enjoyed the first 50years and are looking forward to the second.

Bob LichterTreasurer, 24th ENC

Erwin Hahn

25th - 1984 Wilmington

Chair: Frank AnetLocal Arrangements: Ed Brame

I was pleased and honored to be elected as the chair of this historicENC, which marked a quarter of a century for this conference. It wastherefore appropriate that Bill Ritchey, the chair and driving force forthe first ENC, gave the opening talk and outlined the truly immensechanges that had occurred in the field of NMR during the previous 25years. I will not even try to list all the developments that took place inthat period, but they included the development of high field NMRthrough the use of superconducting magnets, the application of pulseFourier transform methods, the incorporation of computers in theinstrumentation for control and analysis of data, the development ofmultidimensional NMR, the ability to easily obtain high-resolution(especially 13C) spectra from solids, and the entirely new field of MRIimaging, which became in due course “the tail that wagged the dog.”By the way, my own association with the ENC started with the second

conference and I thus had the pleasure of watching these changes come into being.

I was fortunate that Ed Brame, Jr. was an excellent Local Arrangements Chair. I still remember thatI was with Ed and several others examining the meeting room the evening previous to the start ofpresentations, when we noticed that overzealous Radisson hotel personnel had placed ash trays atevery sitting position in the meeting hall. It took us a little while to remove the several hundred ashtrays! Times have fortunately changed, and smoking is no longer tolerated, at least indoors.

Professor F. Bloch had given a talk after the banquet for the 20th ENCheld in Asilomar, so I thought that it was appropriate that Professor E. M.Purcell should be invited to give the talk after the banquet for the 25thENC. These workers did their research on opposite coast of the US andused slightly different experimental techniques. Both, of course, sharedthe Nobel Prize for the discovery of NMR in the condensed phase. Thetalk went very well and Professor Purcell described the details of hisdiscovery. This involved finding a signal for the proton resonance in amassive amount of paraffin (by normal NMR standards) after allowing thesample to stand in the magnet overnight, since nothing much was known about relaxation times.Actually, the T1 relaxation time was a small fraction of a second, as was found later, so waitingovernight was real overkill! Professor Purcell gave his talk suffering from a cold. He had tried toreach me to ask that his talk be cancelled, but he was unable to contact me at the conference anddecided to just go ahead and give the talk. I was most grateful for his generosity, as his absencewould have left a hole in the program.

Nancy True gave a talk on gas phase NMR to study conformational kinetics, which was ofparticular chemical interest to me because of my work in solution dynamic NMR. On looking back,this ENC was similar to those around that time and involved gradual advances in many areas.Overall, the 25th ENC had an eclectic mix of old and new, with 731 attendees – a record at the time– and almost 100 posters, as this medium of communication continued to gain favor. A total of 28vendors again provided a great deal of support for the conference operations.

26th - 1985 Asilomar

Chair: Mark HenrichsLocal Arrangements: Michael Maddox

Mark Henrichs, then of Eastman Kodak, chaired the 26th ENC. We have not been able to locatehim, so I will provide a few comments.

The 1985 ENC was the seventh to be held at Asilomar. By that time the schedule had evolved intoan established order, and the locale was familiar to most participants. The ENC was increasinglypopular – so popular, in fact, that Mark’s introductory note cautioned that “This year we reach themaximum size that can be accommodated at Asilomar.” Changes in the structure of the meetingwere being considered, and participants were asked to respond to a questionnaire on options for thefuture. Changes were made, including simulcasting lectures to the chapel from 1987 on, and theday of reckoning was postponed.

This ENC had 19 hospitality suites, and overall 31 firms werethanked for financial support. There were over 900 attendees and163 posters distributed into afternoon sessions on Monday andWednesday. That permitted Tuesday afternoon to be free forrelaxing and sightseeing.

The buzzword for this ENC seems to have been Dynamic. Severaltalks covered NMR studies of molecular dynamics “from tenths ofa picosecond to the limit of the investigator’s patience” – in solids,of macromolecules in solution, and in polymer chains. Othersdescribed aspects of spin dynamics in new 1D and 2D pulsemethods and in multiple quantum NMR in solids. Two talks dealtwith dynamic nuclear polarization in relation to optical excitation.And Ray Freeman’s account of the problems of dynamic range inNMR were illustrated in the accompanying cartoon.

The increasing importance of NMR in studying solids was apparentat this ENC, with talks on 1H multiple pulse MAS and 13C CP-MAS, as well as presentations on metal and non-metallic surfacesinvestigated by 129Xe, 1H, 13C and 195Pt NMR.

Ted Becker

27th - 1986 Baltimore

Chair: Bob BryantLocal Arrangements: Linda Sweeting

In 1986 the Refrigerator danced and sangas Chicago had won the super bowl. Wewere recovering from the Challengerdisaster. Ronald Reagan was a year intohis second term and ordered the bombingof Libya on the third day of the ENC inBaltimore while we argued about spins.

This was the last ENC organized withoutprofessional help, and we recorded 1024participants almost all of whom turnedout to hear E. Raymond Andrew talk atthe banquet. Clinical MRI was in place

but the installed base was well under 1000 units; the ENC was a gathering that still mixed imagersand spectroscopists. Jim Hyde talked about coils and Bill Edelstein talked about antennas, whileJasper Jackson shocked people with a prototype instrument to do NMR down an oil well, nowcommon practice. John Waugh was working at milliKelvin, Alex Pines was trying to convince usthat there were useful things to do with no field at all and Warren Warren searched for the perfectpulse shape.

2D NMR was still making its way so we had a session on facts and artifacts, which Richard Ernstaddressed even though I am sure he wished to introduce more exciting ideas. Protein structuredetermination was not yet a focus, but solids NMR was breaking lots of new ground. Work at highfield (600 MHz) involved a trip to Carnegie Mellon. There were three and a half days of fun andlike almost every ENC, this one summarized a year of significant transition in experimental NMR.

28th - 1987 Asilomar

Chair: Lynn JelinskiLocal Arrangements: Lynne Batchelder

A summary of the 28th ENC, presented as a “virtual interview:”

Ted Becker: The 28th in 1987 had some curious aspects. Forexample, why did the technical program begin on Sunday night? Inall the previous years it had started on Monday morning.

Lynn Jelinski: I was afraid you’d ask about that. The early startwas to fix a faux pas on my part. Somehow we neglected to inviteRichard Ernst to speak until all of the slots were full.

Ted: Having him speak was a good idea; Richard went on to winthe Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991 for his pioneering work in highresolution NMR.

Lynn: It turns out that three future Nobel Prize winners attended the 28th ENC. Kurt Wüthrichwould go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for his contributions for the determinationof the 3D structure of biological macromolecules in solution, and Paul Lauterbur in Physiology orMedicine for his pioneering work on MRI. Active participation by all three future Nobel Prizewinners underscores the high profile and value of the ENC as a vehicle for communicating newdevelopments in NMR.

Ted: What were some of the firsts of the 28th ENC? Things that an attendee might not havenoticed?

Lynn: It was the first year that the ENC employed a professional conference organizer, withsomewhat mixed results. That was before Judith, of course. We also introduced the Montereycypress logo, which I clipped from a California tourism magazine and Xeroxed onto the cover ofthe program. (Ed Stejskal hand-lettered the cover in his famous calligraphy.) I’ve been worriedever since 1987 that someone would nab me for copyright infringement. I’m delighted to see thatthe ENC’s logo today still retains the spirit of our first logo.

Ted: The symbolism is powerful as we celebrate the 50th ENC. As I recall, you wrote: “TheMonterey cypress, an evergreen that thrives on the Monterey Peninsula, …, symbolizes a special

28th

ENC

location where people in a never-dormant field return year after year to discuss the newestdevelopments in NMR.”

Lynn: You can tell that I was heavily influenced by the Jiri Jonas, Herb Gutowsky monograph,NMR, an Evergreen.

Ted: There must be some other interesting behind-the-scenes vignettes you’d like to share aboutthe 28th ENC.

Lynn: Let’s see – there were a couple of exciting things. The fire alarm went off during one ofthe talks. Even though we guessed that it was a false alarm, we couldn’t take a chance andevacuated anyway. Then there was the quip I overhead the first night after what turned out to be anunintentional (on my part) parade of women leading off the ENC. It began with me welcomingeveryone to the 28th ENC, Lynne Batchelder serving as the all-important local arrangementscoordinator, Linda Sweeting chairing the first technical session, and Mary Baum running the brieforal summaries of the posters. I overheard someone say, “Oh, my goodness. What happened to themen?”

Ted: Those were changing times. What about the historical context of the conference?

Lynn: It’s hard to believe that 1987 was before widespread use of e-mail, and that PowerPoint1.0 was introduced in April of that year. But some things were prophetic for our current times. Forexample, one of the sessions dealt with “NMR for the Detection of Explosives,” and 1987 would bethe year of Black Monday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.6% of its value inone day.

Ted: Do you have any parting comments as we celebrate the 50th ENC?

Lynn: I am heartened to see that the ENC continues to attract really talented people driven tomake new contributions to NMR. I can recall my first ENC (the 19th, in Blacksburg, in 1978)where one of the talks was entitled “2D or not 2D?” Hard to imagine, isn’t it? The preponderanceof new people at the 50th ENC and the strong history of past programs underlie that fact that NMRtruly is an evergreen.

29th - 1988 Rochester

Chair: Stanley OpellaLocal Arrangements: Nick Zumbulyadis

There was some concern about the northern location selected forthe 29th ENC. Fortunately, Rochester New York lived up to itsreputation as the Flower City by having unseasonably warmweather in April of 1988. Notably, this was the first ENCorganized by Judith Sjoberg and her Science Managers company,and this relationship has had a profound effect on all subsequentENCs by ensuring that the meeting arrangements are of the samehigh quality as the scientific presentations. Also, this meeting ledto the ENC being included on the New York Times list of keymeetings on the scientific speaker's circuit.

Twenty years have passed since the 29th ENC, and this is the firsttime that I have looked at the scientific program since the meeting

was held. I am struck by the prescience of so many of the presentations. There were entire sessionsdevoted to magic angle sample spinning, ordered biological systems, and dynamic nuclearpolarization, in addition to those in the more general areas of pulse sequence development,materials and biological imaging, and things that now would be referred to as exotica.

The magic angle sample spinning session introduced a number of advances that have transformedthis field of research. It started with a talk on NMR strategies and high-speed MAS by Gary Maciel,which could be given today until you notice that the abstract mentions speeds “inching toward 30kHz.” The experimental NMR methods discussed in the talks Measurements of two-dimensionalNMR powder patterns in rotating solids (Takehiko Terao), 13C-15N Rotational Echo DoubleResonance (Jake Schaefer), and Rotational Resonance in solid state NMR (Bob Griffin) are stillbeing refined and combined to provide the pulse sequences applied in contemporary studies ofpolycrystalline proteins.

In the session on ordered biological systems, two of the talks were particularly notable for wherethey have led. In the talk Multinuclear experiments for the determination of oligosaccharidestructure in liquid crystal phases, Jim Prestegard described how orientational information could beobtained from weakly aligned biomolecules through measurements of what would become residualdipolar couplings, now an essential element of nearly all protein NMR studies in solution. And TimCross used his talk Dynamics of Gramicidin A transmembrane channel by solid state 15N NMR tointroduce the interplay of structure and dynamics that dominate current solid-state NMR studies ofaligned membrane proteins.

The Program for the 29th ENC reflected the input of the NMR community and discussions andcompromises among the members of the Executive Committee. At the time of the meeting, Ithought it went well, and the participants I heard from were complimentary. I didn't reflect on thequality of the meeting during the intervening twenty years. Now, my reaction is one ofastonishment. The scientific presentations were so far ahead of their time, that it took a while forthem to have their impact. The credit for the success of the 29th ENC belongs solely with thepractitioners of experimental NMR spectroscopy who showcased their ideas and results inRochester.

30th - 1989 Asilomar

Chair: Allen GarrowayLocal Arrangements: Charles Wade

It was a great pleasure for me to chair the 30th ENC and to put together the scientific program withthe insights of the chair-elect Ed Stejskal, the ENC Executive Committee and the Session Chairs.One goal that year was to bring in some NMRpractitioners who were outsiders to the ENC. Two cometo mind: Nobelist (1996) Doug Osheroff with a talk onNMR of the magnetic properties of helium-3 and ZviPaltiel on well-logging by NMR, a technique that hasevolved over the past twenty years into a large-scalecommercial operation. Also of interest to me was thework on SQUID detection of magnetic resonancesignals, with talks by Erwin Hahn and Alex Pines.

Looking over the 50th ENC program, I note there aretopics and speakers common to the 30th ENC. That’s notso bad: some problems take a long time and requirestaying power. However, many of the mechanics of themeeting have evolved more rapidly than the topics.When we organized the 30th ENC, email was justbeginning to catch on, with the powerful 6 MHz 286 PCsof the era. So most communications were still done byfax. I recall shoving 200 poster abstracts through our faxmachine to Ed Stejskal. Most of them were readable onthe other end.

1989 was also a time before cell phones. But we had improved on the previous ENCcommunications technology in which runners were dispatched across the Asilomar campus withmessages, e.g. “‘has anyone seen the donuts?” At the 30th ENC we rented walkie-talkies for themeeting organizers. I well recall the head of the ENC conference office, Judith Sjoberg, with amassive Motorola in a black leather holster that would bring joy to any outlaw biker.

Of course, there were events outside the meeting that shaped us. It was only a few months before,in December 1988, that Pan American Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Most airlinetravelers had that tragedy in mind when they flew to the ENC. PA 103 delivered a sharp reminderthat not everyone shares our values; not everyone is our friend.

I send my best wishes to the present ENC community and join you in looking forward to the next 50years (well, at least the next 25).

31st - 1990 Asilomar

Chair: Ed StejskalLocal Arrangements: Laima Baltusis

My first act as Chair was to send a letter to all the members of theExecutive Committee. I got a reply from Geoffrey Bodenhausensaying that that was too slow (especially for someone in Europe) andsuggesting I use FAX. At the time there was no available FAX in theDepartment of Chemistry at NCSU. The only one available was inthe University Computing Center. Accordingly, I would get my ideastogether during the day and then trot over to the Computing Center sothat they could send 16 FAX’s overnight. I ran up quite a bill.

I followed the standard pattern of the day. The 31st ENC wasprojected to be the largest to-date and I didn’t want to do anything toorevolutionary. I chose the topics for the sessions and then asked oneof the members of the Executive Committee to head and organize thatsession. The one exception to that rule was that Colin Fyfe shared thelast session with Joe Ackerman. I had promised Mary Baum that I would try to get more womenchosen as speakers. As I recall, I got together a list of possible female speakers and she went over itand endorsed some and vetoed others. I had really wanted to get Peggy Etter to talk, but she wastoo ill to travel. As it turned out, we didn’t get too many female speakers, but we did get some.

The previous year’s banquet had been something of a debacle. Things weren’t too bad in the mainroom, but I understand that in the overflow rooms it was a bit of a shambles. I attributed that to thefact that many people had started drinking during the afternoon poster session, continued with thecocktail hour and went on with the wine at dinner. Accordingly I eliminated the alcohol from theafternoon poster session and moved the banquet to the Monterey Aquarium (no speaker and reducedaccess to alcohol). It didn’t occur to me to move the second poster session to the morning, as wasdone later. I recall that one of the vendors specifically asked me to post a sign stating that thealcohol-free idea was my idea and not his. I figured that if anyone was going to reduce the amountof alcohol consumed credibly it would take a boozer (yours truly).

32nd - 1991 St. Louis

Chair: Charles WadeLocal Arrangements: William Hutton

The 32nd ENC was held at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in St. Louis. The hotel was an excellent venuefor the ENC. All the sessions and all the vendor lounges fit easily into the hotel, a rather newstructure just across the street from the Arch. In addition, space was such that the posters could beup the entire week. Nearby were inexpensive hotels which the students utilized and a night life area,The Landing, which many attendees frequented. The Adam’s Mark was also the site of the 34th

ENC.

The attendance, about 1150, was affected by the Gulf War (first Gulf War?) which was promptedby Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Buildup for the Gulf War began in August 1990, air attacks began inJanuary, the height of the conflict was February 24-27, 1991 and the hostilities ended April 6. Theuncertainties created by this had a strong impact on travel planning and on registrations. Thirtyvendors were present, and 15 companies made donations to fund 20 student travel stipends.

The conference format had a single session for all 40 presentations. Two morning poster sessionswere held with a total of 264 posters. Of note in the presentations were several in areas thatexpanded considerably over the next decade: an overview of the use of gradients in high resolutionNMR (P. van Zijl); several papers on enhanced data processing in multidimensional NMR (M.Rance, S. Smith, E. Olejniczak); and a session on microimaging of materials and biological systems(W. Kuhn, R. Kimmich, L. Jelinski, R. Armstrong, E. MacFarland).

I served on the ENC board for 8 years, beginning in 1985. In the mid-1980s ENC underwenttremendous growth in number of participants and had a few growing pains. Handling theconference with volunteers was sometimes an exercise in crisis management. By the early 1990s itwas a smoothly functioning conference, in part due to changes made in the late 1980s: improvingthe organizational skills by hiring a fulltime professional meeting planningcompany (Judith Sjoberg’s which is stillinvolved) and improving the audio-visual capabilities. Al Garroway, JoeDumais, and Dean Willingham were bigcontributors to the audio visualimprovements, and Dean is stillinvolved. The 32nd ENC proceededsmoothly due to those improvements.

ENC remains a superb conference, aunique combination of scientific presen-tations and vendor involvement with asteady flow of new ideas and youngscientists.

33rd - 1992 Asilomar

Chair: Andy ByrdLocal Arrangements: Laima Baltusis

The ENC is undoubtedly one of the foremost conferences that involve orrelate to magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Since its beginning in 1960with a small group of practitioners, it has grown to be the place wherenew developments were presented and discussed, where dramaticadvancements in the applications to chemistry, biology, imaging and evenquantum computing are found in their earliest incarnations, where newinstrumentation was revealed and whose conception flowed from thecombination of research that was the foundation of the ENC,encompassing solution-state, solid-state, and the spin physics of NMRspectroscopy.

Having the honor to be one of the 49 scientists who have chaired thisconference (note that Gitte Vold was Chair twice!) is one of the personal highlights of my career.My first ENC was in 1975, in Asilomar, and it was transformative. The opportunity to meet theleaders in the field, including the young Richard Ernst and Ray Freeman, and form the beginningsof friendships with colleagues that have become leaders in diverse aspects of our field was uniqueand powerful. As many of my colleagues will write, we always came to the ENC no matter whatapplication area of NMR we pursued. We watched the meeting grow, and we became involved inthe organization and planning for the meeting.

When I was selected to Chair the 33rd ENC, the field was exploding in the area of biological NMRwith uniform isotopic labeling and 3D/4D NMR, we were seeing the initial applications of PFGs tosolution NMR, solid state NMR was exploring REDOR and Rotational Resonance as precursors tothe coming manipulation of dipolar coupling/recoupling that mirrored previous developments insolution NMR manipulating J-couplings. It was common for the Executive Committee to discussthe expanding diversity of the field and how to cover it with the ‘single session’ concept that hadstood so well for the NMR community. It was an important and valuable tenet of the meeting, sinceit fostered the cross-fertilization of ideas and expertise between liquid-state, solid-state, and imagingexperts. Nevertheless, the ENC needed to match the growth of the field and to embrace it.

At the 33rd ENC, we took two significant steps in the format of the meeting. It was the first ENC tohave parallel sessions. Al Garroway had initiated the remote viewing technology in the Chapel in1989, and it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with parallel sessions. This approachallowed us to expand the program while still retaining the 3.5 day meeting, closing at noon onThursday. The concept remained controversial, since parallel sessions were only held again inBoston (1995) before becoming a standard feature in 2002 with the 43rd ENC in Asilomar, when themeeting had already lengthened to 4.5 days. The second major step was the first use of the “TENT”to hold poster sessions. The ENC was growing fast and busting at the seams for Asilomar. After anumber of attempts, we finally obtained approval from Asilomar management to allow us to use atent for the poster sessions. This allowed us to increase the number of posters by > 50% to 370.This was both exciting and terrifying…as we prepared for the meeting, the reality of rain and windmade us wonder whether we would survive this decision! Despite having several flowing streams

coursing through the tent, it was successful and led the way for ever increasing numbers of postersand participation by many young scientists, which is one of the strongest elements of the ENC.

We also celebrated with exuberance the recent awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (October1991) to Richard Ernst. As a community, we were well aware of Richard’s pioneering work, as hehad presented the developments at ENCs, and it was a delight to share in some small way hisachievements and the recognition of our field. Few have been so giving to a research community asRichard Ernst, and it was an honor to share in congratulating him at the 33rd ENC.

1992 was a momentous year for me, since, during the preparation for the ENC, I moved my lab tothe NCI and 4 weeks before the ENC my daughter was born. I was very grateful for the chance tohave served as Chair of the 33rd ENC, but when 12:00 pm arrived on Thursday, April 11th, theexhaustion of the meeting and sleeplessness of the first month of fatherhood made it difficult toappreciate. Through all of these trials, the excellent assistance of Judith Sjoberg, ConferenceManager, was essential and formed the basis of a warm friendship that allowed me to convince herto also help organize ICMRBS meetings. As time passed, it sunk in what an exquisite opportunitythe community gave me, thank you!

34th - 1993 St. Louis

Chair: Mary BaumLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

Perhaps the most vibrant memory I have of the 34th ENC in St. Louis was that those of us whowere involved in its organization were fortunate enough to arrive on the Friday before theconference started. A darned good thing, as a whopper of a nor’easter was brewing, poised to wendits way up the east coast starting Saturday night and ending Monday morning. Sir Al Garrowayphoned me on Saturday morning “Hi Mary, this is Al. We’re expecting flight delays in DC, so I’llbe a little late, arriving later this evening,” then again Saturday evening “Hi Mary, this is Al. Theairport’s closed for the night, but I’ll get out as soon as I can on Sunday,” then again on Sundaymorning “Hi Mary, this is Al. We’ve got a state of emergency in DC, nobody is permitted to travel

anywhere until further notice,” then again onMonday “Hi Mary, this is Al. I’ve got a flightbooked for tomorrow morning.” He arrived onTuesday. Snowfall on the east coast ranged from 15to 36 inches from that storm, and in all, we hadover 250 attendees whose arrival was delayed bymore than a day. Miraculously, none of ourspeakers were delayed!

There was to have been a riverboat cruise in lieu ofthe banquet, but it was cancelled with very shortnotice when the riverboat company decided toconvert all of its cruise boats to casinos. That left uswith no banquet speaker, so we ended up doing abrief slide presentation of photos that had beentaken at the conference.

In 1993, 26 students received travel stipends toattend the ENC. They have gone on to researchpositions in national laboratories, faculty positionsat colleges and universities, and at least one is

running a spa and developing a line of cosmetics!

In terms of the science that was presented, the proliferation of acronyms was evident: TOCSY,HOSE, MACROSEARCH, COSY, NOESY, ROESY, REDOR, TEDOR, CPMAS, CRAMPS,HOHAHA, DECODER (this fallen spectroscopist has to ask whether many of them survive to thisday). We saw one of the first fMRI images of a human brain; we heard about the hybridization ofatomic force microscopy with NMR; we learned that spider silk is stronger than steel; we sawimages taken using a superconducting probe; we probed the structures of proteins, DNA, enzymes,and their small-molecule partners; and we presented innumerable examples of new hardware, newtechniques, and outstanding research.

I am now Associate Dean of the Faculty at Princeton University and no longer doing NMR, butHere’s to 50 years of the ENC – long may it continue!

35th - 1994 Asilomar

Chair: Bernhard BlümichLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The time of preparation of the 1994 ENC must have been more busy than any other time in my life:in 1993 had started my position as professor of macromolecular chemistry at RWTH AachenUniversity, travelled between family in Mainz and work in Aachen, started building a house,prepared a whole set of new lectures to teach macromolecular chemistry and prepared the ENC.But thanks to the already established expertise of Judith Sjoberg and her team, the ENC work wentsmoothly, although for the first time, the ENC chair was not from the US.

That brought along some peculiarities with the umlaut “ü” in my name which is stubbornly beingignored in the Anglo-Saxon civilization. I was not going to accept that and indeed managed to getthe proper spelling of my name in the ENC letterhead. It helped that Judith’s name at some darkEuropean times also had an umlaut. We had great fun and many jokes with umlauts in those days.So when Judith called one day after the election of Hellmut Eckert for chair elect and asked ifHellmut is spelled with an Umlaut, I was convinced that this was one more joke on Umlauts, andmy answer was “of course”. Lo and behold, the official letterhead of the 35th ENC has not only thecorrect spelling of my name with the umlaut, but also Hellmut Eckert’s name spelled wrongly withan umlaut as “Hellmüt”. Those two dots may not mean a lot in the US, but for Helmut and myselfthey do make a difference.

That leaked to Ray Freeman and some others, and subsequently there was extended correspondencebetween Ray Freemän, a certain Jean Delayre (this is John Delayre from Tecmag) and PeterBlümler and Bernhard Blümich. Here is a quote from a letter sent from Cambridge to Jean Delayrewith the letterhead reading “Umlautfabriken G.m.b.H. Dalmatia, Germany” and signed by “HeinzSeibenundfünsig (Oberst)”:

We are pleased to hör of your interest in plazing an order for our handcrafted umlauten.Unfortunately you haf not correctly spezified your requirements! We manufacture umlautenin Times Roman, Helvetica, Palatino, Palamino, Wagnerian, Neonazi, Götterdmämmerung,Nietzchian, and Gothic. Please note that Hönnecker has been discontinued......

It is a great group, our NMR community!

Peter Blümler, Manfred Wilhelm, BradChmelka, and Bernhard Blümich (left toright) near Aachen reminiscing the 35th

ENC with a Heinz-57 ketchup bottle,Asilomar pine sprouts in the flower pot andsmoking import-restricted cigars of AlexPines banned to an existence in umlaut-ridden, provincial Europe.

36th - 1995 Boston

Chair: Hellmut EckertLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The 1995 NMR had as its special theme “50 years of NMRspectroscopy”, and it took the conference to the city of Boston, oneof the NMR birthplaces. We were particularly gratified by the factthat three of the authors of the two original publications announcingNMR in condensed matter, Professors Purcell and Pound (fromHarvard), and Dr. Packard (from Stanford), accepted our invitation,and in the opening ceremony they were honored for their ultimateresponsibility for the existence of this conference. Professor Pound,who admitted that this happened to be the very first ENC he everattended, then gave an inspiring opening lecture on the discovery ofNMR, which really captured the excitement of those pioneering days.Purcell and Pound, along with Professors Bloembergen and Ramsey,also joined us for the banquet, where all of us enjoyed Ted Becker`s after dinner talk sharing manyhistorical anecdotes from the early days of NMR. One of the outstanding attractions, organized byShaw Huang (Harvard) was an Historical Exhibit, showcasing pioneering NMR equipment of allkinds, such as ancient rf amplifier tubes, water-cooled magnet coils, and various NMR and NQRprobes. In addition, the exhibit contained many historical photographs and copies from numerousoriginal laboratory notebooks from the discovery days.

With more than 1600 participants and 559 posters, the 1995 ENC had been the largest one ever, andI speculate (although I don’t know for sure) that this record might still be unbroken. When Imentioned the attendance figure in a conversation with one of the invited speakers (a theoreticalchemist who had never been to an ENC before), his reaction was pure amazement: “1600 people allhere for just one experiment?? Unbelievable!” Due to the enormous interest the conferencegenerated in the community, we decided to complement the plenary sessions with numerous sets oftechnical sessions held in parallel. The reviews on this experiment were mixed, however, as itproved difficult to avoid topical overlap, and the forthcoming ENCs returned to their usual formatwithout parallel sessions. We also introduced a new special session devoted exclusively tocompetitively selected student speakers, which was widely appreciated. While many of the invitedlectures presented important progress in their fields, the most important technique innovationintroduced at the Boston conference, in my view, was Lucio Frydman`s multiple-quantumcorrelation experiment for obtaining high-resolution MAS NMR spectra of quadrupolar nuclei(poster 340). As this method allows an easy elimination of second-order quadrupolar broadeningeffects using commercially available equipment it continues to have a tremendous impact on thefurther development of the field.

From a personal perspective, these were interesting times indeed, as the month in which the 1995ENC was held, coincided precisely with my transition from UC Santa Barbara to the University ofMünster. And the responsibility and challenge of making this ENC a special one turned out to be anenormously gratifying experience! It was a great privilege to work with the enthusiastic anddedicated team members of the ENC Executive Committee and to benefit from Judith Sjoberg`splanning genius, the generosity and cooperation of the vendors, as well as the dedicatedprofessionalism of all the Boston Marriott hotel staff. Most importantly, however, I believe wesucceeded in maintaining the high scientific standard of the conference, in increasing the “exchangeinteraction” between theory, new techniques and new applications and in consolidating theimportant role of the ENC in the NMR community.

37th - 1996 Asilomar

Chair: Geoffrey BodenhausenLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

ENC 1996 was scheduled to be the last ever to be held in Asilomar. Indeed, the ExecutiveCommittee, intimidated by the relentless growth of the number of participants, had decided the yearbefore that we should move to another site equipped with modern amenities. We had exploredalternative sites for ENC 1998, including, at John Delayre’s suggestion, a luxurious hotel inHouston. Accompanied by Judith Sjoberg, a delegation had duly visited the place, to check out thelecture halls, poster areas, etc., The hotel management had put me up in their Presidential Suite,which must have comprised at least half a dozen rooms, about twice the size of my currentapartment in Paris. Impressed by their reception, we booked virtually the entire hotel for 1998, and Isigned a contract in the name of the Executive Committee, with a penalty clause that would haveabsorbed the entire assets of ENC had we defaulted. This clause was to become effective a fewdays after ENC 1996.

At ENC 1996, the conference bags carried the nostalgic message “Farewell Asilomar”, and manytalks were dedicated to fond memories of this memorable site which was soon doomed to oblivion.As it happened, the Committee was faced with an unexpected rebellion of the attendees. Laurie Halldelivered a fiery speech where he eloquently invoked the role of friendship in science, and howimportant the unique ambiance of Asilomar had been for the spirit of our community.

So we booked Asilomar again for 1998, and chickened out of the Houston contract at the lastminute. I rarely received so many angry phone calls in my life.

My principal contribution to the program was my idea to inviteAlbert Overhauser for an after-dinner speech. At that time, I hadwritten at least 50 papers on his famous effect, and I was curiousto meet him for dinner just before his speech. As it happens, hewas so tense that our conversation was rather stilted, and Iforgot to tell him that I had been making a living for years on hisidea. Once he had stepped on the podium, he quickly flashed afew equations that I had never seen before, and rapidlyconcluded ‘that was all there was to say’ about his famous NOE.To this day, I have not been able to reconstruct what he reallymeant to say. I guess this is typical for the life of a scientist:you go to a meeting, hear many boring talks, and when there is,at last, a lecture that you’ve really been looking forward to hear,you miss the key point. Perhaps because of a lack ofmathematical background, insufficient prior knowledge,incomprehensible jargon, or some other shortcoming. Whateverthe reasons may be, the fact remains that conferences can befrustrating.

I have a more personal recollection to share with aficionados of Asilomar. I had been elected Chairtwo years earlier, in March 1994, also at Asilomar. A few weeks earlier, I had taken the decision toquit my position at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland to take up a job at the National HighMagnetic Field Laboratory, coupled with a faculty position at Florida State University in

Tallahassee. This had not been an easy decision, particularly with respect to my daughters, whowere not so thrilled about the choice of leaving Switzerland. (As it happened, they soon made peacewith life in the US, and one of them is now living in Chicago.) While I was waiting for the outcomeof the election on Asilomar’s grounds, watching some deer frolicking about, I pondered how painfulit might turn out to be for me, as soon-to-be-immigrant to the US, if I failed to get elected. So whenthe news of my election came through, it gave me a much-appreciated feeling that I was going to bewelcome in the US.

Apart from Overhauser, I have hardly any recollections of the scientific program. I remember thatHervé Desvaux, at that time a visiting scientist at the NHMFL, on leave from the French AtomicEnergy Commissariat, gave a group seminar after our return to Tallahassee, curtly stating that therehad been ‘nothing new this year’. Yet, my dear collection of massive ENC folders (from thosewonderful days where real paper was still used, before most proceedings were downgraded to merevirtual records!) shows a strong complement of gifted lecturers: Ernst, Freeman, Bax, Kay,Frydman, Navon, Prestegard, Halle, Otting, Shaka, Keeler, Markley, Massiot, Sebald, Tycko,McDermott, Schaefer, Griffin, Mehring, Callaghan, van Gunsteren, Brüschweiler, Brünger, vanZijl, Haase, Kupce, Howard Hill, Frank Laukien, and many others. ENC 1996 cannot have beensuch a bad vintage!

38th - 1997 Orlando

Chair: Jim RobertsLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The pre-conference visit to the Clarion Plaza Hotel wasactually fun. After all, the facility appeared to have almosteverything the ENC required in an “East Coast” hotel site: alarge ballroom for plenary sessions, a second ballroom soposters could remain available the entire week, enoughvendor suite space with the added bonus that all vendorswere on one floor, a nearby less expensive hotel, facile airconnections to Orlando, alternative entertainment venues forfamilies and non-conferees (Sea World, Universal Studios,and a little place called Walt Disney World), enough rooms,a pool (but no beach), and several restaurants both in thehotel and in the immediate vicinity. The ENC returned toOrlando in both 1999 and 2001. Part of the fun on the site

visit was driving to the coast to see a night launch of a satellite from the Cape.

Many of the program sessions were similar to those of the previous few years, with traditional areasof liquids, solids, biomedical NMR, polymers, biological macromolecules, instrumentation, andexotica. The more unusual sessions included “Alternative Ways of Doing Magnetic Resonance,”“Intermediate State (not liquid or solid)”, and a “Student Session.” I remember poring over theposter abstracts until the early hours of several mornings, trying to pick out several abstracts to sendto session chairs so they could select a few for “promoted” talks. The speakers were a mix of ENCregular contributors and newcomers – the session chairs made a number of excellent suggestions forspeakers. If the conference was successful at sampling the state of the field at that time, it waslargely due to the session chairs and members of the Executive Committee.

The banquet speaker on Wednesday night was Wallace Brey, the long-time editor of the Journal ofMagnetic Resonance. His talk, "Some Experiences during 27 Years as JMR Editor," reflected thehistory of NMR as well.

As chair of the conference, it seemed like there was always some issue that needed attention. Theopening reception on Sunday night was held around the pool. I distinctly remember not leaving thehotel again until late Thursday night for the traditional “beach walk” with a group of special friendsthat meet at the ENC. That year the late night stroll was held around the pool by necessity. I can’twait to get back to Asilomar to walk on a real beach again!

39th - 1998 Asilomar

Chair: Gitte VoldLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

In the spring of 1998, Monica and Bill were all the rage on the U.S.political scene (and subsequent inspiration for the IMPEACH-MBCand CIGAR-HMBC sequences used to elucidate proton-deficientmolecular frameworks). Peace was declared in Northern Ireland, butIsrael, Iraq, and the U.N. were in the midst of a tense standoff.Justice was also proclaimed with the arrest of former Chilean tyrantAugusto Pinochet and the imprisonment of the Unibomber. And faraway from all of that, both literally and figuratively, nearly 1500NMR spectroscopists were fully engaged with TROSY, bicelles,quantum computing, and the like. The 39th ENC, marking the‘return’ to Asilomar, was chaired by the late Regitze (Gitte) Vold,who was the first among four women to hold this position, and the

only person to chair the meeting twice (see the 24th ENC).

Scientifically, transverse relaxation-optimized spectroscopy (TROSY), in conjunction withdeuterium labeling, promised to extend solution-state structural studies to proteins and micelle-encapsulated aggregates as large as 300 kDa and intensified the push toward GHz NMRspectrometers. Spin relaxation was also exploited for relaxographic tissue images and fMRIcontrast methods based on intermolecular zero quantum coherence; to probe both hot-spot locationsand motional rates that influence protein folding and activity. Meanwhile, the versatility ofbilayered micelles (bicelles) was evident both in solution and solid state: in dilute form they yieldedresidual dipolar couplings to refine 3D protein and nucleic acid structures, while as membrane-mimetic media they facilitated studies of peptide structure using solid-state spectroscopy.

A new wave of MAS-based experiments hit the solid-state NMR beachhead – long-distancemeasurements for spin pairs in proteins, determinations of selective 13C-13C distance constraints andtorsion angles in uniformly labeled peptides, 129Xe optical pumping to enhance observation of silicasurface species. Beyond the mainstream focus on molecules large and small, materials natural andengineered, there were enticements off the beaten track: strange fields (stray-field gradients andacrobatic cycled fields), small samples (microcoils and nanoprobes), and quantum computers(curiosities or future useful tools?).

It was also in 1998 that Gitte announced the new Laukien Award for experimental NMR research toenable beneficial new applications, sponsored by a founding family of Bruker BioSpin. This wasthe year in which the Executive Committee began serious consideration of electronic abstractsubmission; it was when the new Asilomar management endeavored to protect the grounds from ourposter tent intrusions, to ban hard liquor, and to supply bartenders to the vendor suites (orsometimes not). This ENC featured an unofficial women’s luncheon, a pre-dawn beach walk, and avariety of notable(?) acronyms: TROSY, RDC, MAOSS, CRAZED, STRAFI, HORROR, QPASS,RIACT, GAUDI, STUD+ Stripe-COSY, BASHD-ROESY, HoMQC, TIG-BIRD, SIMPLE,MOUSE, ODESSA, SHREWD, DECRA, FAIR, MAH, TOESY, MSHOT-3, DÉCOR, CLEANEX-PM, BOOMERANG, ALBATROSS, RUFIS, MESSI,… and more.

To the next 50 years of spinning spins,Ruth E. StarkTreasurer, 39th ENC

40th - 1999 Orlando

Chair: Jerry AckermanLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The 40th ENC took place in bright, sunny Orlando, Florida,February 28 – March 5, 1999, just before the turn of themillennium. The great concern weighing on our nation's collectivepsyche was Y2K: would power plants fail and planes fall out of thesky because it hadn't occurred to Bill Gates to use four charactersfor the year field in MS-DOS 1.0 twenty years earlier? Of course,we were to wake up on January 1, 2000 to find that nothing hadhappened on that front, but a lot was happening in Orlando in 1999.

The most notable aspect of that conference was the inauguration ofthe Günther Laukien Prize, a $15,000 cash award generously

contributed by Bruker to honor the memory of the company's co-founder and guiding light. Theaward was to be given “to recognize and reward new cutting-edge experimental NMR research witha very high probability of enabling beneficial new applications.” Richard Ernst agreed to chair theLaukien committee, and we worked hard over about half a year to choose a deserving awardee.

The committee selected for the first Laukien Prize the group of scientists who created TROSY(Transverse Relaxation-Optimized Spectroscopy), Konstantin Pervushin, Roland Riek, GerhardWider and Kurt Wüthrich. TROSY enabled multidimensional spectroscopy to be extended tobiomolecules of considerably larger mass. At the opening session on Monday morning the awardwas presented by Christian Griesinger. Kurt gave a short introduction, immediately followingwhich Konstantin delivered the first Laukien Prize lecture in the Biopolymer Structure sessionchaired by Geoffrey Bodenhausen.

The ENC has a history of recognizing scientific leaders early in their development. Kurt would goon to share the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his development of nuclear magnetic resonancespectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules insolution.” Richard Ernst (Nobel 1991, Chemistry) and Paul Lauterbur (Nobel 2003, Medicine)were long familiar to ENC attendees.

The banquet speaker that year was Aksel Bothner-By. Aksel gave a highly entertaining talk entitled“40 Years in Show Business” about his long history of contributions to our field. He talked abouthis pioneering 600 MHz magnet, and even got a thousand audience members to sing along with himthe tune he composed especially for the occasion, “There’s No Business Like Our Business.” If thecommittee decides this year that ENC needs an official anthem, look no further.

That year we heard about NMR at high (compressed knee cartilage) and really high (diamond anvil)pressure, NMR in low (hyperpolarized gases) and really high (900 MHz) fields, NMR scanningpeople in airports and 8T magnets, NQR scanning for land mines, NMR scanning bones, cells,tumors, plaques, fluids and gases in people, and NMR with really small (microcoils) and reallybig—meaning complex—coils (receive arrays)…and of course lots of NMR in solutions and solids.

There were about 64 talks and 436 posters over five days…all in all a wonderful meeting.

41st - 2000 Asilomar

Chair: Christian GriesingerLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

I remember that organizing the ENC in 2000 was a big challenge forme since I had decided half a year before the major wave oforganizational work to move from University of Frankfurt to MaxPlanck Institute in Göttingen which meant a lot of work at my oldplace and also a lot of work at the new place. Judith Soberg wasextremely pleasant to work with since she kept reminding me ofdeadlines and things that I needed to do while making sure thateverything she could do was done perfectly. The session chairsselected mainly but not exclusively from the committee were in chargeof putting together their session speakers in agreement with me whichturned out to be of great value, since obviously no single person canbe expert in all fields of NMR science. In that time window, Iremember one morning during a conference early in January of 2000at the TATA institute in Mumbai where I spent approximately 6 hoursdoing emails for the conference in the chilliest and stormiest (because of the air conditioning)computer room I remember. I ended up sitting with winter jacket and thick sweater almost withgloves but that was impossible because I needed to type while it was 35°C outside of the computerroom.

Lucio Frydman, the chair of the 50th ENC, received the Laukien prize in 2000 which was a veryeasy decision to make by the committee for his developments in Multiple Quantum MAS.

Further highlights of the conference were the use of dipolar couplings in solution for themeasurement of domain orientations in multidomain proteins by Lewis Kay who won the Laukienprize in 2004, not the least for isotope labelling of proteins such that dipolar couplings could bemeasured in the optimal way on large proteins. Further applications employed DNA,oligosaccharides and paramagnetically tagged proteins to observe dipolar couplings andpseudocontact shifts in otherwise diamagnetic proteins. The field had been started by Ad Bax,Aksel Bothner-by and James Prestegard who were awarded the Laukien prize in 2002.

In further sessions, topics that have become main stream in the meantime were present:Hyperpolarization by noble gases for enhanced MRI and solid state DNP presented by Robert R.Griffin, who was awarded the Laukien prize in 2007, were highlights at the time. Another sessionon this topic: “Nuclei meets electron” emphasized this topic.

A full session was devoted to real time kinetics observed by NMR after photoactivation or usingmixing devices which is a very challenging and therefore slowly growing field.

Sessions on long term favorites investigated by NMR spectroscopy in a unique way such as proteinand RNA dynamics were represented with special emphasis on the interpretation of cross-hydrogenbond J-couplings that lead to the Laukien award to Stephan Grzesiek in 2005 as well as on crosscorrelations and concerted motions.

A field that has grown tremendously over the past years was also represented at this conference,namely the structural and dynamical interpretation of chemical shifts which are so easy to measurebut much harder to interpret than scalar or dipolar couplings or cross relaxation effects.

Other topics present at this conference which have grown since then tremendously were thestructural investigation of amyloids with solid state NMR, the investigation of membrane proteinsby solid state NMR and the study of dynamics with solid state NMR.

Another topic that has been picked up by many groups around the world since then is the use ofparamagnetic relaxation enhancement to determine structures of difficult proteins. Gerhard Wagnerpresented a talk in this direction showing that spin labelling and distance measurements allow toobtain structures when only few NOEs are available. This method is now in use not only formembrane proteins and intrinsically unfolded proteins in solution NMR but also in solid state NMRwith the same purpose.

John Waugh gave a very witty after dinner lecture that was inspiring for the whole audience.

42nd - 2001 Orlando

Chair: Art PalmerLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

I joined Peter Wright’s laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute as apostdoctoral scientist in 1989, knowing virtually nothing about high-fieldbiological magnetic resonance. By the time of the 33rd ENC in 1992, I hadlearned enough to attend the ENC and present my first poster, entitled“Dynamics of Methyl Groups in Proteins as Characterized by Proton-Detected Heteronuclear NMR Spectroscopy” (I note that my poster titleshave not changed so much in the ensuing 17 years). At the 33rd ENC, Ibegan to meet the many scientists who I knew only from the literature andwho subsequently have become friends and colleagues.

At the 33rd ENC, I would not have guessed that I eventually would have thehonor to chair the 42nd ENC, the last conference held in Orlando, FL, in2001. I was fortunate to have served on the Executive Committee for theprevious two years and had learned a great deal about chairing the meeting by working with JerryAckerman, Chair of the 40th ENC, and Christian Griesinger, Chair of the 41st ENC. As Chair, Ireceived tremendous assistance from Chair-elect Bob Griffin and the other members of theExecutive Committee. The excellence of the scientific program was due directly to the wisdom ofthe Executive Committee. After months of preparation, the 42nd ENC, between handing out badgesat Registration on Sunday afternoon to passing the Chairmanship to Bob Griffin at the BanquetThursday evening, seemingly passed in an instant and soon I was saying goodbyes and “see younext year” on Friday afternoon.

Without doubt, the highlight of the Conference for me was meeting Professor Erwin Hahn, whogave the After Dinner Address, entitled “Oddities and Serendipities in the History of NMR and theSpin”. My career in NMR spectroscopy has been built upon spin-echo sequences, so I have aspecial memory of talking with the discoverer of the effect at length late one night. The scientifichighlight of the Conference was the award of the third Laukien Prize to Peter Boesiger, KlaasPrüßmann, Markus Weiger for Sensitivity-Encoded Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the first LaukienPrize awarded for advances in MRI. I am proudest of the 56 student travel stipends that wereawarded at the 42nd ENC. As far as I can tell, that number set a short-lived record that gratifyinglyhas been surpassed at subsequent ENCs through the generous support of many companies, theNational Institutes of Health, and Suraj Manrao. Looking back at the list of student travel recipients,I am struck by how many of these then-students are already establishing their independent careers inmagnetic resonance. Their accomplishments are the real legacy of the 42nd ENC.

After the 42nd ENC ended, I spent the following week recovering in central Florida while attendingCleveland Indians spring training games with my father, who had driven down from Cleveland, OH.This vacation started a tradition in which he and I attend spring training either before or after theENC, whenever the Conference takes place near the team’s training site. As luck would have it, theCleveland Indians have relocated to Arizona this year, so I will arrive at the 50th ENC sunburnedfrom watching preparations for the upcoming season. Forgive me if I lapse into a reverie at somepoint during the 50th ENC, remembering that special time in my career when I was Chair of thiswonderful meeting, or perhaps I only will be dreaming of a World Series title for my long-sufferingteam.

43rd - 2002 Asilomar

Chair: Bob GriffinLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The 43rd ENC in April 2002 was the first ENC following thecatastrophic events of 9/11. The meeting survived thetumultuous times, but there were several challenges and questionsthat arose that would normally not have been a concern.

First, was the serious possibility that we might encounter areoccurrence of 9/11 and that ENC, Inc. would have to pay forhotel reservations, meals, etc. that were not used and this couldbankrupt the organization. In addition, air travel droppedprecipitously immediately after the event and it was not clear thatit would recover by the spring of 2002. Thus, we were veryconcerned that we would have a quorum of attendees, which could

again place the meeting in a precarious financial position.

Second, we had another problem that led to an even greater concern -- the life of one of the invitedspeakers was threatened by an unhappy colleague! In particular, some months prior to the meeting Ireceived an e-mail that stated if that speaker appeared on stage he would be shot! The messageimplied that the sender was in the Asilomar area checking out the location of the facilities, and infact we traced the source of the message to an internet shop in Monterey. If this threat occurredpre-9/11, it would have been treated seriously; but, in the atmosphere post 9/11 it generated anurgent response. In the end, Asilomar and the ENC had an extra security detail on hand at themeeting, checking badges at the door of the Merrill Hall, etc. Fortunately the unhappy individualdid not appear. Maybe no one noticed except Judith and me?

Third, that year I had invited Anatole Abragam to be the after dinner speaker. Anatole is alegendary figure in magnetic resonance and was always extremely entertaining at the GordonResearch Conferences where he often spoke. Thus, I was surprised that no one had invited himpreviously to speak at the ENC. In any event he had booked his trip, planned his talk and waslooking forward to the meeting, including a visit in Berkeley on the way to Asilomar.Unfortunately, he developed a serious back problem and was unable to travel. As a result, werecruited an equally famous replacement – Maurice Goldman – to present the after dinner speech. Irecall introducing Maurice as a very colorful speaker -- he usually would wear an orange coat forthese presentations!

Finally there were the vendors and their usual set of problems -- we were not doing nearly enoughfor them! One in particular wanted an unusually generous deal for his suite. As a consequence Ispent two, maybe three, months negotiating the price per square foot for vendor space! Such are thethings that transpire in the background when you are chair of the ENC.

Despite these problems, we did manage to assemble a nice program covering solids, liquids andimaging, and the meeting took place on schedule and without mishap. Prior to 2002 the ENC rarelyhad parallel sessions, which placed the program committee in a quandary -- either you filled theprogram with luminaries of the field or with young faculty, students and postdocs whose research is

in its initial stages. In order to better accommodate both, we switched to a parallel session formatwith plenary sessions as well as parallel sessions devoted to more specialized topics. This format ormodifications of it have persisted since 2002.

The ENC is a very important meeting TO the field of NMR. It is probably the only one of themultitude of scientific gatherings in the field that is truly essential. It brings together the entirespectrum of scientific participants in an environment that is matched by few places on earth. It wasa real pleasure to serve as chair in 2002.

44th - 2003 Savannah

Chair: Peter van ZijlLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

As a chemist turned MR imager, I have had long experience with theENC and was pleased to chair the conference in 2003. This was thefirst time in a period of eight years that the “east coast” ENC was notheld in Florida, which was in response to the complaint that Orlandowas really too cheesy for serious NMR scientists. The weather inSavannah was nice, and the program had several exciting features.Kurt Wüthrich had just received his Nobel Prize and a special sessionwas organized to celebrate this event, featuring many of his oldstudents and postdocs. This was followed by a wonderful dinner,where Kurt displayed his expertise of wine. The Laukien award wasbestowed upon Jake Schaefer for his technical developments in solid-state NMR.

The ENC is characterized by the presence of many loyal attendees, all of whom care greatly aboutthe meeting. In this respect it is important to mention that 2003 was the firstyear when Suraj Manrao, whom we all know and, amazingly, who remembersall of our names, put his own money forward to support students and youngpost-docs to attend the meeting by establishing the awards that now bear hisname. We are all grateful to Suraj.

Finally, the venue provided some interesting complexities. Many attendees hadhotels in the city on the other side of the river and the last ferry left at midnight,much earlier than typical ENC bedtime. This not only overloaded the small ferry,but also caused complaints from both vendors (customers gone) and scientists(no free drinks in the city). However, this did not spoil the great atmosphere ofthe meeting with much new science and topped off after Thursday’s dinner byspeaker Ray Freeman, highlighting his view of how things came about.

45th - 2004 Asilomar

Chair: Warren WarrenLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The 45th ENC occurred at a time of great excitement in the magneticresonance community, as magnetic resonance received its secondconsecutive Nobel recognition just prior to the meeting (this time, theaward was to Lauterbur and Mansfield for magnetic resonanceimaging). But it was also a time of great stress for ENC as anorganization, and became an opportunity to make substantial changes,most of which have persisted to this day.

Savannah (the meeting site for the 44th ENC) has its charms, but alsoserious limitations – there are good reasons why we have not goneback there. Only one hotel was near the conference center, and therest required taxi or ferryboat transport. Vendors in particular were

dissatisfied with these arrangements (the meeting nightlife was unusually quiet, and traffic in thevendor suites was significantly down). We had raffled prizes for visiting the vendor suites, butparticipants had to answer specific questions about the products on display, and the vendors feltthey were spending most of their time playing a trivia game with visitors. Many were consideringnot returning to Asilomar the next year. These concerns were certainly viewed as important: thevendors have traditionally played a major role at this meeting (far exceeding their financialcontributions, which are considerable), and their role is a large component of what has made ENCspecial over the years.

More generally, the ENC program had settled into a very predictable format over the precedingdecade. The time was right to shake things up, and the Executive Committee did exactly that.ENC joined the computer age, with online abstract submission and abstracts on CDs (in color, andwith figures) instead of the older thick binders of text-only abstracts. This made an enormousdifference in the abstract selection process – the committee could now see who really had new andexciting data. We introduced tutorial talks, usually given by outgoing members of the ExecutiveCommittee. With strong vendor participation, we got Asilomar to make changes that reduces theircosts and administrative burden. We switched the prize raffle form to one that simply had to bestamped at every suite, and got about 400 forms back by the end of the meeting. We introduced apost-deadline paper format, with speaker slots set aside for outstanding entries. We moved thebanquet to the Monterey Aquarium, where it will return this year. But surely the highlight, for thosewho attended, was the opportunity to hear Richard Ernst introduce Paul Lauterbur, who addressedthe group by videotape. He was already too ill to travel much, but his ten-minute presentation putboth ENC and magnetic resonance into an extraordinary historical context.

Many of us came into the 45th ENC wondering if it had already gone on too long. We left with afeeling that this was a vibrant meeting for a dynamic community – a feeling that surely persiststoday.

46th - 2005 Providence

Chair: Christina RedfieldLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The 46th ENC was held at the Rhode Island Conference Center inProvidence, a new east-coast site for the ENC. The lectures, postersessions and hospitality suites were all housed within theConference Center and people staying at the Westin Hotel neverhad to venture outdoors. I thought this was an excellent venue forthe ENC; there was easy access from all parts of the USA andEurope, Providence has great restaurants and there was even a largeshopping mall connected to the Conference Center for the shop-aholics in the NMR community!

The meeting started on Monday morning with the Laukien PrizeLecture. The prize for 2005 was awarded to Stephan Grzesiek “inrecognition of his surprising discovery of multiple classes of Jcouplings across hydrogen bonds in biological macromolecules,

their structural usage, and the development of suitable pulse sequences for measurement of theseinteractions.” In putting together the scientific program, the Executive Committee arranged severalsessions which focussed on addressing a particular problem rather than a specific area of NMR.The presentations in the sessions on 'Ligand Binding and Interactions', 'Membrane Proteins' and'Protein Folding and Misfolded Proteins' included both solution and solid-state NMR approaches totackling these problems. We continued the Tutorial Session introduced at the 45th ENC at Asilomarin 2004. The tutorial talks, aimed at graduate students and non-specialists, covered topics rangingfrom RDCs in biomolecular structure determination to radiation damping and dipolar effects tophase transients and rf imperfections in solid state NMR; there was something for everyone. Theconference dinner on Thursday evening was a ‘traditional New England clambake’; I’m not surehow traditional it was since we weren’t at the beach. Britton Chance, Emeritus Professor at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, gave the after-dinner talk on ‘MRI and NIRI Meet in Magnet for Betteror for Worse’.

The 46th ENC was attended by over 1100 people. We were able to award student travel stipends toover 70 students thanks to the continued generosity of numerous sponsors including Suraj Manrao.The meeting was a success thanks to the hard work of the Executive Committee, the Chair-electKurt Zilm, and Judith Sjoberg and her team. I have an e-mail archive of over 1500 messages sentand received in the course of organising the meeting. I have to admit that April 10-15th 2005 is a bitof a blur to me since I spent a lot of my time worrying about missing speakers and empty posterboards instead of enjoying the high-quality talks. I hope that those of you who attended the meetingenjoyed it.

47th - 2006 Asilomar

Chair: Kurt ZilmLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

"My" ENC was in 2006, and although only three short yearsago I had to go back and reread the program to decide whatwas most memorable about the experience. In doing so Irealized that my most vivid ENC memories were actually fromearlier in my career – my first poster, my own first ENC talk,watching Damadian being escorted out of Merrill Hall aftertrying to give a rebuttal talk in the guise of asking a question.

The program at the 2006 ENC was enormously broad,reflecting the continued rapid pace of innovation in our field.Membrane proteins were a hot topic, with solution and solidsNMR both making remarkable contributions. Advances incold probe technology were reviving direct detection of 13Cand 15N in macromolecular NMR; alternatives to the Fouriertransform were recognized with the Laukien prize; and it wasdemonstrated that spin noise could be used in NMR imaging.

As chair, I remember being very worried about the budget, and the enormous relief I felt when theconference actually did better than break even. And even though some of our senior statesmen areknown for insisting on not using PowerPoint, I believe that my ENC was the first where every talkwas given using a computer – no dual slide projectors, overheads, or document cameras.

Lastly I remember how easy it was to decide on the future ENC sites that year. When the committeerealized the next site to pick would be for the 50th ENC, it was obvious that we would have repeatvisits to Asilomar in 2008 and 2009.

48th - 2007 Daytona Beach

Chair: Truman BrownLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

The 48th ENC was held at the Hilton Oceanfront Hotel inDaytona Beach from April 22nd to 27th, 2007. The weatherwas very cooperative, allowing everyone to take advantage ofthe fact the hotel was right on the beach as advertised. Ofcourse, one has this opportunity at Asilomar, but the Atlanticoff Daytona Beach is much more cooperative than the Pacificoff Asilomar. We enjoyed ourselves so much that theExecutive Committee decided to return at the next opportunity,which will be 2010.

There were 19 regular sessions and 4 poster sessions at whichapproximately 500 posters were presented. We had our

normal entertaining banquet and after dinner speaker in Prof. Peter Atkins from Oxford University,who reminisced about his experiences at Oxford in the early days of ESR and his subsequentwriting career. The Laukien Prize was won by Prof. Robert G. Griffin from MIT for his successfuldevelopment of high-field dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) for sensitivity enhancement in solid-state NMR with magic-angle spinning.

One unfortunate last minute addition to the program was a memorial session for Paul Lauterbur whopassed away less than a month before the meeting on March 29th, 2007. I was able to squeeze in asession, inviting both his wife, Prof. Joan Dawson of the University of Illinois and several of hisstudents and postdocs so as to acknowledge his great contribution to NMR, both in the physicalchemistry area and, of course, imaging.

We were able to continue our support of students to attend the ENC with partial travel grantsthrough the considerable generosity of the Suraj P. Manrao Science Foundation, a grant from theNIH, and our regular corporate sponsors – Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, Doty Scientific, Inc.,Isotec, New Era Enterprises, Revolution NMR LLC, Spectra Stable Isotopes, Triangle Analytical,Inc. and Varian, Inc. In total this support allowed us to bring 66 students to the meeting.

49th - 2008 Asilomar

Chair: Angela GronenbornLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

Asilomar has always been my favorite location for the ENC and Iwas fortunate to chair this conference in 2008.

A highlight of the meeting was Malcolm Levitt’s Günther LaukienPrize lecture on ‘Optimized pulses and pulse sequences for liquidand solid state NMR’. The composite pulse concept has had arevolutionary influence for devising novel NMR experiments andhas impacted solution and solid state methods equally over the past30 years. This type of work reflects perfectly the spirit embodied bythe ENC – embracing all of NMR, whether solution, solid-state,imaging, in-vivo or other exotic methods.

The overall science was too plentiful to give justice to all the high points. A heavy dose of“paramagnetics” was injected and “dynamics” kept us all nimble.

In addition to the scientific talks and poster sessions we tried something new that year - two eveningworkshops: The first one presented 'NMR at Principally Undergraduate Institutions' and allowedfaculty that teach at these institutions to exchange ideas and strategies for introducing undergraduatestudents to NMR. This session was organized by the recently formed ‘Collegiate MagneticResonance Consortium’ in response to the growth of NMR intensive laboratories in liberal artsundergraduate environments.

The second was a workshop at which a lively discussion about the benefits as well as the trials andtribulations of 'Sparse Data Acquisition in Multidimensional NMR' were aired. A.J. Shakachallenged the participants to consider and present circumstances where the various approachesmight fail. Not everyone was ready to expound failures, though.

And, we had our first ENC ice sculpture, in keeping with the chillytemperatures!

50th - 2009 Asilomar

Chair: Lucio FrydmanLocal Arrangements: Judith Sjoberg

'Let not him who puts on his armor boast like him who takes it off', 1 Kings20:11

This last write-up in the ENC chairs series differs from the ones that preceded it, in that it concernssomething that is yet to happen. Therefore unlike previous chairs, who having already “taken offtheir armor” can rightfully boast about the magnificent edifice they have helped build over thedecades, my only “boast” can be of having tried to make this ENC an event to remember. And sowhile I wait with hope –and some anxiety– for my own turn to pass the breastplate to the comingchair, let me use this page to pay homage to the people that have helped to make this Jubilee ENC areality.

I joined the ENC Executive Committee (the “ExComm”) in 2002 after being canvassed for this taskby Bob Griffin, and I attended the meeting regularly thereafter for several consecutive years.Still in 2007, I decided that the recent arrival of mydaughter Maya was a strong enough motive to skip anENC – even if it took place in beautiful Daytona. Andthus it came to happen that on 4/24/07, under thedisquieting subject title “HI”, the chair of the 48th ENCTruman Brown emailed me a message from Daytonawhose implications were inversely proportional to itslength: “Just to let you know that you are the Chair for2009. Congratulations. Details on other stuff to follow.Truman”. Why and how the ExComm, in all itswisdom, decided to choose a chair sitting ten timezones away from the site planned for the 50th ENC –that is hard for me to tell. Yet I cannot but speculatethat this choice somehow reflects the unparalleled opennsystem, and which has been a component of this Conferen

And hence started the great privilege of being involved inresponsibilities involved setting up the scientific and teccompiled to the high standards placed by previous ENCsbut fortunately it isn’t the task of a single person: muchthe vigorous exchanges within the ExComm, which accemails per year during the last seven years. These exchanhow to find the best and brightest that is happening in thegreat frankness, and pose a collective intellectual exerciseideas and logistical support also came from ScienceMSjoberg’s leadership has been instrumental in putting toNorth America. Last but not least, one of the most inspibeen the chance it has given me to appreciate the unique rthe world of magnetic resonance over the last half-cenacknowledge the relentless efforts that great people like Tthe rest of the “50th Anniversary Task Force”, have invesreality. To all this fantastic group of people that paadventure – and foremost to you the attendee, on whichalways hinge – goes this token of sincere appreciation.

In April 2007 with little Maya –who in spite of hercute kitty disguise, may have been responsible at least

th

in part for the choice of the 50 ENC’s chairperson

ess that underlies the American academicce ever since its inception.

preparing the 50th ENC. Much of thesehnical program, which we trust to have. This may appear as a daunting mission,of the ENC’s unique vitality comes fromording to my statistics average over 500ges focus first-and-foremost on where andNMR world. They are characterized by ain which it is a pleasure to partake. Good

anagers, the company that under Judithgether ENCs year after year throughoutring aspects of chairing this meeting hasole that ENC has played in –and beyond–tury. In this respect it is a pleasure toed Becker, Ray Freeman, Alex Pines andted in making these celebratory aspects artook in this exciting multi-dimensional

the success of every ENC has and will

ENC DATA

No. Year Location Dates Chair Local Chair Attendance Posters

1 1960 Cleveland, OH June 24 Bill Ritchey Bill Ritchey 43

2 1961 Pittsburgh, PA Feb 24-25 George Slomp Barry Shapiro 118

3 1962 Pittsburgh, PA March 2-3 David Grant Gus Friedel 140

4 1963 Pittsburgh, PA Feb 28-March 2 Charlie Wilson Aksel Bothner-By 297

5 1964 Pittsburgh, PA Feb 28-March 1 Paul Lauterbur Aksel Bothner-By 241

6 1965 Pittsburgh, PA Feb 25-27 Charles Reilly Aksel Bothner-By 221

7 1966 Pittsburgh, PA Feb 24-26 Aksel Bothner-By Tore Castellano 247

8 1967 Pittsburgh, PA March 2-4 Jake Stothers Aksel Bothner-By 271

9 1968 Pittsburgh, PA Feb 29-March 3 Paul Shafer Tore Castellano 241

10 1969 Pittsburgh, PA Feb 27-March 1 Ted Becker Aksel Bothner-By 283

11 1970 Pittsburgh, PA April 21-24 Tom Flautt Tore Castellano 286

12 1971 Gainesville, FL Feb 17-20 Bob Lundin Wallace Brey 247

13 1972 Asilomar April 30-May 4 Barry Shapiro Bob Lundin 286

14 1973 Boulder, CO April 15-18 Tom Farrar Mel Hanna 275

15 1974 Raleigh, NC April 28-May 1 Wallace Brey Charles Moreland 298

16 1975 Asilomar April 20-24 Jerry Swalen Bob Lundin 388

17 1976 Pittsburgh, PA April 25-29 George Levy Aksel Bothner-By 385 29

18 1977 Asilomar April 11-15 Paul Ellis Lois Durham 315 50

19 1978 Blacksburg, VA April 16-20 LeRoy Johnson Harry Dorn 483 45

20 1979 Asilomar Feb 19-23 Ken Williamson Bob Lundin 455 58

21 1980 Tallahassee, FL March 16-20 Gary Maciel George Levy 427 70

22 1981 Asilomar April 5-9 Gerd Lamar Woody Conover 558 95

23 1982 Madison, WI April 25-29 Nino Yannoni Tom Farrar 473 102

24 1983 Asilomar April 10-14 Gitte Vold Lynne Batchelder 97

25 1984 Wilmington, DE April 8-12 Frank Anet Ed Brame 731 98

26 1985 Asilomar April 21-25 P. Mark Henrichs Mike Maddox 958 163

27 1986 Baltimore April 13-17 Bob Bryant Linda Sweeting 1024 162

28 1987 Asilomar April 5-9 Lynn Jelinski Lynne Batchelder 1008 125

29 1988 Rochester, NY April 17-21 Stan Opella Nick Zumbulyadis 864 206

30 1989 Asilomar April 2-6 Al Garroway Charles Wade 1170 204

31 1990 Asilomar April 1-5 Ed Stejskal Laima Baltusis 1212 240

32 1991 St. Louis, MO April 7-11 Chuck Wade Bill Hutton 1150 264

33 1992 Asilomar March 29-Apr 2 Andy Byrd Laima Baltusis 1304 371

34 1993 St. Louis, MO March 14-18 Mary Baum Judith Sjoberg 1068 289

35 1994 Asilomar April 10-15 Bernhard Blumich Judith Sjoberg 1456 489

36 1995 Boston, MA March 26-30 Hellmut Eckert Judith Sjoberg 1600 559

37 1996 Asilomar March 17-22 Geoffrey Bodenhausen Judith Sjoberg 1452 620

38 1997 Orlando, FL March 23-27 Jim Roberts Judith Sjoberg 1148 422

39 1998 Asilomar March 22-27 Gitte Vold Judith Sjoberg 1488 596

40 1999 Orlando, FL Feb 28-March 5 Jerry Ackerman Judith Sjoberg 1137 436

41 2000 Asilomar April 9-14 Christian Greisinger Judith Sjoberg 1425 609

42 2001 Orlando, FL March 11-16 Art Palmer Judith Sjoberg 1063 511

43 2002 Asilomar April 14-19 Bob Griffin Judith Sjoberg 1343 539

44 2003 Savannah, GA March 30-Apr 4 Peter van Zijl Judith Sjoberg 1021 552

45 2004 Asilomar April 18-23 Warren Warren Judith Sjoberg 1345 449

46 2005 Providence, RI April 10-15 Christina Redfield Judith Sjoberg 1041 515

47 2006 Asilomar April 23-28 Kurt Zilm Judith Sjoberg 1319 434

48 2007 Daytona Beach, FL April 22-27 Truman Brown Judith Sjoberg 1039 392

49 2008 Asilomar March 9-14 Angela Gronenborn Judith Sjoberg 1164 480

50 2009 Asilomar March 29-Apr 3 Lucio Frydman Judith Sjoberg

AFTER DINNER SPEAKERS

No. Year Location Speaker Title / Comment

1 1960 Cleveland, OH

2 1961 Pittsburgh, PA

3 1962 Pittsburgh, PA

4 1963 Pittsburgh, PA

5 1964 Pittsburgh, PA

6 1965 Pittsburgh, PA

7 1966 Pittsburgh, PA

8 1967 Pittsburgh, PA

9 1968 Pittsburgh, PA

10 1969 Pittsburgh, PA

11 1970 Pittsburgh, PA

12 1971 Gainesville, FL

13 1972 Asilomar

14 1973 Boulder, CO

15 1974 Raleigh, NC

16 1975 Asilomar

17 1976 Pittsburgh, PA Max Gergel President, Columbia Organic Chemicals and raconteur

18 1977 Asilomar

19 1978 Blacksburg, VA

20 1979 Asilomar Felix Bloch Reminiscences on the discovery of NMR

21 1980 Tallahassee, FL

22 1981 Asilomar R. Kivelson "Magnetic Resonance, Thermal Luminescence and the Vase of Euphronious"

23 1982 Madison, WI Charles P. Slichter

24 1983 Asilomar Erwin L. Hahn "My Memories of NMR in the Old Days"

25 1984 Wilmington, DE Edward M. Purcell Perspectives on the discovery of NMR

26 1985 Asilomar George Pake26 1985 Asilomar George Pake

27 1986 Baltimore E. Raymond Andrew

28 1987 Asilomar H. S. Gutowsky "… no sign of slackening"

29 1988 Rochester, NY Robert Hunt "The Future of Conventional and Electronic Imaging"

30 1989 Asilomar G. J. Martin "NMR of Wines"

Ted Becker "Thirty Years of ENC's"

31 1990 Asilomar Dinner at Monterey Aquarium

32 1991 St. Louis, MO S. Knapp "Scientific Contributions of the Lewis and Clark Expedition"

33 1992 Asilomar Bill Phillips "Technology Policy in the Bush Administration"

34 1993 St. Louis, MO

35 1994 Asilomar Wes Anderson "Early NMR Experiences and Experiments"

36 1995 Boston, MA Ted Becker "50 Years of NMR: Some Insights and Anecdotes"

37 1996 Asilomar Albert Overhauser "Dynamic Nuclear Polarization: A Reminiscence"

38 1997 Orlando, FL Wallace Brey "Some Experiences during 27 Years as JMR Editor"

39 1998 Asilomar Rex Richards

40 1999 Orlando, FL Aksel Bothner-By "40 Years in Show Business"

41 2000 Asilomar John Waugh "Fifty Years of Riding the NMR Wave"

42 2001 Orlando, FL Erwin Hahn "Oddities and Serendipities in the History of NMR and the Spin"

43 2002 Asilomar Maurice Goldman "Thermodynamic Games with Nuclear Magnets"

44 2003 Savannah, GA Ray Freeman "Two French Mathematicians Who Transformed NMR"

45 2004 Asilomar Paul Bottomley "Of MRI, the Exile of Nuclei, and Thirty Years Wars"

Bill Edelstein "MRI from Scotland to Schenectady"

Paul Lauterbur Videotaped Remarks

46 2005 Providence, RI Britton Chance "MRI and NIRI Meet in Magnet for Better or for Worse"

47 2006 Asilomar Alex Pines "ENCore. Sixty Years of Magnetic Moments"

48 2007 Daytona Beach, FL Peter Atkins "An Oxford Career, Not Forgetting Magnetic Resonance"

49 2008 Asilomar Dennis Torchia "Forty Years a Postdoc and Still Spinning"

50 2009 Asilomar Visit to Monterey Aquarium