Archive for October, 2011

Analyst Issue 22: featuring Future Electroanalytical Developments

Analyst 2011, Issue 22 covers

Analyst, 2011, 136(22): 4605-4856

Analyst and Analytical Methods are combining forces to present some of the best work on Future Electroanalytical Developments.  This web theme is ongoing for coming months and amongst the papers will be those invited from speakers at Eirelec ’11, which took place in Adare, Republic of Ireland in May.

Issue 22 features a number of papers from this web theme, including both cover articles.

On the front cover, Joe Wang and colleagues review electrochemically-propelled nanomotors, which offer numerous potential applications in biomedical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and forensic analysis.

Minireview: Motion-driven sensing and biosensing using electrochemically propelled nanomotors
S. Campuzano, D. Kagan, J. Orozco and J. Wang
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15599G

On the inside front cover, Mohtashim Hassan Shamsi and Heinz-Bernhard Kraatz use electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) to distinguish between bovine species based on mitochondrial DNA fragments.

Electrochemical identification of artificial oligonucleotides related to bovine species. Potential for identification of species based on mismatches in the mitochondrial cytochrome C1 oxidase gene
Mohtashim Hassan Shamsi and Heinz-Bernhard Kraatz
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15414A

Other papers from the web theme in Issue 22 are:

Minireview: Graphene and graphene-based nanomaterials: the promising materials for bright future of electroanalytical chemistry
Xiao-mei Chen, Geng-huang Wu, Ya-qi Jiang, Yi-ru Wang and Xi Chen
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15661F

Electrochemical behaviour and voltammetric sensitivity at arrays of nanoscale interfaces between immiscible liquids
Mickaël Rimboud, Robert D. Hart, Thomas Becker and Damien W. M. Arrigan
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15509A

Determination of morphine at gold nanoparticles/Nafion® carbon paste modified sensor electrode
Nada F. Atta, Ahmed Galal and Shereen M. Azab
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15423K

A disposable sensor for point of care wound pH monitoring
Jolene Phair, Laura Newton, Cliodhna McCormac, Marco F. Cardosi, Ray Leslie and James Davis
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15675F

Electrochemical DNA sensor by the assembly of graphene and DNA-conjugated gold nanoparticles with silver enhancement strategy
Lei Lin, Yang Liu, Longhua Tang and Jinghong Li
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15610A

Chemically-modified graphenes for oxidation of DNA bases: analytical parameters
Madeline Shuhua Goh, Alessandra Bonanni, Adriano Ambrosi, Zdeněk Sofer and Martin Pumera
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15631D

Asymmetric logistic peak as a suitable function for the resolution of highly asymmetric voltammograms in non-bilinear systems
Mojtaba Kooshki, José Manuel Díaz-Cruz, Hamid Abdollahi, Cristina Ariño and Miquel Esteban
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15396J

A microfluidic device based on a screen-printed carbon electrode with electrodeposited gold nanoparticles for the detection of IgG anti-Trypanosoma cruzi antibodies
Sirley V. Pereira, Franco A. Bertolino, Martín A. Fernández-Baldo, Germán A. Messina, Eloy Salinas, María I. Sanz and Julio Raba
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15569E

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The best of Brazil: popular Analyst articles

Brazilian flag

The Brazilian government hopes to improve the country's knowledge base in key scientific disciplines

Universities in Germany, the US, the UK and other nations are preparing for an influx of tens of thousands of Brazilian students, doctoral candidates and post-docs in the next three years.

The students will start arriving in January as part of Brazil’s new Science Without Borders programme.

The goal of the programme is to more than quadruple the number of Brazilians studying abroad to 75,000 by 2014. The plan is to place them at leading universities in fields of strategic national importance to Brazil.

To find out more, read the full story at Chemistry World.

Brazil is certainly growing in scientific output – here, we’ve collected together some of our recent content from Brazilian authors for you to take a look at.  They are free to access until the end of October:

Information visualization techniques for sensing and biosensing
Fernando V. Paulovich, Marli L. Moraes, Rafael Mitsuo Maki, Marystela Ferreira, Osvaldo N. Oliveira Jr. and Maria Cristina F. de Oliveira
Analyst, 2011, 136, 1344-1350
DOI: 10.1039/C0AN00822B

Recent advances in electronic tongues
Antonio Riul Jr., Cléber A. R. Dantas, Celina M. Miyazaki and Osvaldo N. Oliveira Jr.
Analyst, 2010, 135, 2481-2495
DOI: 10.1039/C0AN00292E

Instantaneous chemical profiles of banknotes by ambient mass spectrometry
Livia S. Eberlin, Renato Haddad, Ramon C. Sarabia Neto, Ricardo G. Cosso, Denison R. J. Maia, Adriano O. Maldaner, Jorge Jardim Zacca, Gustavo B. Sanvido, Wanderson Romão, Boniek G. Vaz, Demian R. Ifa, Allison Dill, R. Graham Cooks and Marcos N. Eberlin
Analyst, 2010, 135, 2533-2539
DOI: 10.1039/C0AN00243G

Biosensor for luteolin based on silver or gold nanoparticles in ionic liquid and laccase immobilized in chitosan modified with cyanuric chloride
Ana Cristina Franzoi, Iolanda Cruz Vieira, Jairton Dupont, Carla Weber Scheeren and Luciane França de Oliveira
Analyst, 2009, 134, 2320-2328
DOI: 10.1039/B911952C

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Top ten most accessed articles in September

This month sees the following articles in Analyst that are in the top ten most accessed:-

DNA as a target for anticancer compounds screening directly by resonance light scattering technique 
Zhanguang Chen, Yurui Peng, Maohuai Chen, Xi Chen and Guomin Zhang 
Analyst, 2010, 135, 2653-2660 DOI: 10.1039/C0AN00386G   

Surface enhanced optical spectroscopies for bioanalysis 
Iain A. Larmour and Duncan Graham 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 3831-3853 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15452D    

Conjugation of quantum dots with graphene for fluorescence imaging of live cells 
Mei-Ling Chen, Jia-Wei Liu, Bo Hu, Ming-Li Chen and Jian-Hua Wang 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4277-4283 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15474E    

Aptameric system for the highly selective and ultrasensitive detection of protein in human serum based on non-stripping gold nanoparticles 
Yanhua Sun, Sheng Cai, Zhijuan Cao, Choiwan Lau and Jianzhong Lu 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4144-4151 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15520B    

Colorimetric assay for sulfate using positively-charged gold nanoparticles and its application for real-time monitoring of redox process
 Min Zhang, Yu-Qiang Liu and Bang-Ce Ye 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4558-4562 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15632B   

Hemin/G-quadruplexes as DNAzymes for the fluorescent detection of DNA, aptamer–thrombin complexes, and probing the activity of glucose oxidase
 Eyal Golub, Ronit Freeman, Angelica Niazov and Itamar Willner 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4397-4401 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15596B

Top-down mass spectrometry: Recent developments, applications and perspectives 
Weidong Cui, Henry W. Rohrs and Michael L. Gross 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 3854-3864 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15286F    

Applications of nanoscale carbon-based materials in heavy metal sensing and detection 
Adam K. Wanekaya 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4383-4391 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15574A    

A novel nitrite sensor based on graphene/polypyrrole/chitosan nanocomposite modified glassy carbon electrode
 Daixin Ye, Liqiang Luo, Yaping Ding, Qiang Chen and Xiao Liu 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4563-4569 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15486A    

A new FRET nanoprobe for trypsin using a bridged ß-cyclodextrin dimer–dye complex and its biological imaging applications
 Ping Li, Ying Liu, Xu Wang and Bo Tang 
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4520-4525 DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15271H    

Why not take a look at the articles today and blog your thoughts and comments below.

Fancy submitting an article to Analyst? Then why not submit to us today or alternatively email us your suggestions.

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Meet Professor Pat Unwin: Part 1

Prof. Pat Unwin

Professor Pat Unwin, Electrochemistry and Interfaces Group, Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick

At the recent Eirelec ’11 meeting, Professor Mike Lyons of Trinity College, Dublin met with Professor Pat Unwin of the University of Warwick to speak about his life as a researcher in electrochemistry.  Read on to find out about Pat’s time as a student in Liverpool, his scientific heroes, his current work and why he uses The Beatles to inspire his students…

Mike: Prof. Patrick Unwin, it’s a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of Analyst. I would just like to ask you a couple of questions.  First Pat, could you tell us basically about yourself, your educational background and how you came to be an electrochemist?

Pat: I studied for my B.Sc. at the University of Liverpool and was generally interested in physical chemistry. I primarily went to Liverpool as I thought it was a fascinating city: very different to other English cities and almost like going abroad. As an 18 year-old , I was very interested in politics, and was a big fan of Liverpool culture, from the Beatles to playwrights like Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale, and – of course – football and excellent pubs!

There were some inspirational people teaching at Liverpool: (now Sir) David King and Nev Richardson in surface science; Richard Compton in electrochemistry; Don Bethell in physical-organic chemistry; and David Cole-Hamilton in inorganic chemistry, among others. I did my final year project with Richard Compton and really enjoyed it. We were working on channel electrodes for mechanistic studies and I had to get to grips with extensive papers from Amatore and Savéant, and learn about hydrodynamic systems, which was a great introduction to electrochemistry as an undergraduate.

What appealed to me was just how broad electrochemistry is, and how interesting it is; how it brings together mathematics, fluids, interfaces, kinetics, thermodynamics. There’s a fantastic range of things one can tackle with electrochemistry and electrochemical principles. From there, I went to study for my D.Phil. at Oxford with Richard Compton and I moved on to work with Allen Bard in Austin, Texas as a SERC-NATO Fellow in 1990.

Mike: Ok, now I suppose I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and ask: who is your electrochemical hero, or perhaps more generally, who is your scientific hero?

Pat: My electrochemical hero has to be Allen Bard – he’s an absolutely fantastic role model as a person and as a scientist, and I learned so much by working with him. My period in Austin was very enjoyable. But, I generally take my inspirations from people and their contributions outside science. I occasionally remind my research group of how the Beatles and George Martin revolutionised music, essentially in the period of a typical Ph.D.! Their music has stood the test of time and they were so creative in developing new ideas and pushing the boundaries. And they did it while having a lot of fun along the way; all essential aspects in science.

Mike: You’ve got very broad interests in electrochemistry, can you tell us a little bit about your research and your current activities?

Pat: A lot of our effort at the moment is going into high resolution flux measurements so that we can really understand structure and function. We are developing new kinds of imaging techniques – largely (but not exclusively) based on electrochemical principles and then applying the techniques and ideas across interfacial science, so we have quite a lot going on concerning ionic crystals where we really want to understand what chemical species and phenomena are important in controlling crystal growth.

We’re also looking at membrane transport, again using basic principles of electrochemistry and diffusion. It’s exciting not least because what we learn in one area we can take into another area. Then we also have programmes looking at sensor systems, particularly developing new forms of carbon electrodes: nanotubes, graphene and diamond. That’s work I’m doing with my colleagues, Julie Macpherson and Mark Newton.

Here again, we are using high resolution electrochemical techniques to map activity. The nanoscale electrochemical imaging techniques we have recently developed allow us to identify active sites on electrode surfaces and give us considerable new insights on the behaviour of new electrode materials.

Mike: I can see where your crystal growth stuff is coming from because that comes back to your work with Richard Compton.

Pat: Yes, we studied dissolution together back in the 1980’s and that – and crystal growth investigations – goes back a long way. What we are trying to do now is apply electrochemical principles rather than techniques. There is still a huge amount to discover in this field about what the active species and processes are and what shapes a final crystal.

Mike: Yes, because soft matter synthesis is very much a black art, and people are trying to make nanoparticles of different shapes at the moment, but there seems to be very little rational basis in deciding what synthetic strategy one would actually adopt, in a particular situation so you’ve got it dead right there.

van der Sneppen et al, Analyst, 2010, 135, 133-139

van der Sneppen et al, Analyst, 2010, 135, 133-139

We’ll be putting up the second part of the interview soon, so watch this space!  In the meantime, do take a look at Pat’s article in Analyst from last year:

Following interfacial kinetics in real time using broadband evanescent wave cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy: a comparison of light-emitting diodes and supercontinuum sources
Lineke van der Sneppen, Gus Hancock, Clemens Kaminski, Toni Laurila, Stuart R. Mackenzie, Simon R. T. Neil, Robert Peverall, Grant A. D. Ritchie, Mathias Schnippering and Patrick R. Unwin
Analyst, 2010, 135, 133-139
DOI: 10.1039/B916712A

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Issue 21 cover articles

Analyst 2011, Issue 21 cover images

Analyst, 2011, 136(21): 4369-4604

Issue 21 is now available online, with the usual high-quality collection of reviews, communications and papers.

On the front cover:

In cytology, continuous, real time and non-invasive monitoring of cellular behaviour is important in advancing the understanding between cell-substrate interactions and its requisite behaviour.  Results of this type of study are also important with respect to the design of cell-based biosensors.

In this paper from Michael Thompson and colleagues at the University of Toronto, the response of a TSM device to various neuronal changes of immortalized murine neurons are reported and analysed. In particular, the process of neuronal deposition, adhesion and proliferation are investigated.

Interfacial behavior of immortalized hypothalamic mouse neurons detected by acoustic wave propagation
Shilin Cheung, Laura J. Fick, Denise D. Belsham, David A. Lovejoy and Michael Thompson
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4412-4421
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15534B

And on the back cover:

Protein glycosylation participates in many cellular events, such as cell adhesion, receptor activation, signal transduction, molecular trafficking and clearance, and endocytosis.  Characterisation of protein glycosylation requires highly specific methods for the enrichment of glycopeptides because of their sub-stoichiometric glycosylation-site occupancy.  Here, Xiuling Li of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, and colleagues investigate the use of ZrO2/MPS microspheres to enrich glycopeptides in HILIC SPE microtips, compared with the glycopeptide binding selectivity and glycosylation heterogeneity coverage with sepharose-based enrichment.

Zirconia layer coated mesoporous silica microspheres as HILIC SPE materials for selective glycopeptide enrichment
Huihui Wan, Jingyu Yan, Long Yu, Qianying Sheng, Xiuli Zhang, Xingya Xue, Xiuling Li and Xinmiao Liang
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4422-4430
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15554G

Both articles will be free for 6 weeks – take a look and let your colleagues know!

Also of interest:

Depolarization of surface-attached hypothalamic mouse neurons studied by acoustic wave (thickness shear mode) detector
Shilin Cheung, Laura J. Fick, Denise D. Belsham and Michael Thompson
Analyst, 2010, 135, 289-295
DOI: 10.1039/B919430B

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Hollow sensing microcapsules with faster response time

Optrode particle geometry to decrease response time

A sol–gel organosilane capsule has been compared with its ‘filled’ particle analogue and shows a faster response time

Soluble chemical sensing agents used for intracellular sensing and imaging generally have a fast response time, potentially allowing real-time measurements. When directly exposed within the intracellular environment, however, their cytotoxicity, protein binding and intracellular sequestration can result in unreliable measurements.

To tackle these problems, optrodes for the detection of analytes have been transformed into microsphere-based sensors so both the reagent and the cell are protected, whilst multiple sensing agents can be reliably positioned.

In work supported by an EPSRC/RSC Analytical Studentship, Jamie Walters and Prof. Lisa Hall of Cambridge University explored a spherical sensor geometry that could improve response time.  They report a hollow 3 mm sensing microcapsule containing chromoionophores within a 100 nm organosilica shell, which shows a response time that is two orders of magnitude faster than ‘filled’ sensing particles of similar diameter.

The capsules show great potential for use in existing sensing platforms for analysis such as microfluidic devices, cytometry and waveguides.

Read the paper using the link below – it is currently free to access.

An optrode particle geometry to decrease response time
Jamie D. Walters and Elizabeth A. H. Hall
Analyst, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15336F

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Issue 20 online

Analyst Issue 20 covers

Analyst, 2011, 136(20):4085-4368

Optical analysis features on both covers of our latest issue.

On the front cover, Kagan Kerman of the University of Toronto and colleagues used near-IR optical trapping to characterise the early stages of aggregation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides, an indicator of Alzheimer’s disease.  The work provides new insight into the first two hours of aggregation, and therefore our understanding of the role of Aβ oligomers in neuronal cell cytotoxicity and pathogenesis.

Optical trapping for the characterization of amyloid-beta aggregation kinetics
Anthony J. Veloso, Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, Xin R. Cheng, Eiichi Tamiya and Kagan Kerman
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4164-4167
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15480J

On the back cover, Tarkeshwar Gupta and Anup Kumar demonstrate direct label free optical detection of parts-per-billion (ppb) levels of Fe(II) in an organic solvent.  Molecular recognition at solid–solution or solid–gas interfaces has received tremendous scientific interest to develop nanoscale molecular systems for chemical sensors, molecular switches and logic architectures.

Communication: A highly sensitive redox-active monolayer for “signal-on” optical detection of iron(II)
Tarkeshwar Gupta and Anup Kumar
Analyst, 2011, 136, 4127-4129
DOI: 10.1039/C1AN15519A

Both articles are free for 6 weeks, so do take a look!

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