Author Archive

New Analyst Impact Factor Announced

We are delighted to announce the latest Impact Factor for Analyst is 4.033 according to the 2015 Journal Citation Reports ®.

We would like to thank all of our authors, referees, Editorial and Advisory Board members for their contributions to the success of Analyst.

Submit your best work to Analyst today.

*The Impact Factor provides an indication of the average number of citations per paper. Produced annually, Impact Factors are calculated by dividing the number of citations in a year by the number of citeable articles published in the preceding two years. Data based on 2015 Journal Citation Reports®, (Thomson Reuters, 2016).

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Analytical Research Forum 2016


The next Analytical Research Forum is due to take place at Burlington House, London, UK on the 8th July 2016

“The Analytical Research Forum provides a high impact scientific meeting for the UK analytical community with both high profile speakers and opportunities for younger researchers to present their work. Our one day format includes keynotes and invited talks plus additional oral papers selected by the Scientific Committee from the submitted abstracts. The flash poster session enables yet more participants to share their work in this exciting interdisciplinary meeting for the analytical science community.”

There will be five plenary speakers invited from around the UK, presenting on topics including…

•    The sound of chemistry
•    Cracking crime with lasers
•    New horizons in medical diagnostics
•    Rosetta: the challenge of analysis beyond Earth

Dates for your diary:

3rd May 2016: Oral abstract deadline
9th May 2016
:
Poster abstract deadline
3rd June 2016
:
Early bird registration deadline
3rd June 2016
: Bursary application deadline
24th June 2016
: Final registration deadline

SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT HERE

For more information about the event please see the Analytical Research Forum website. Hope to see you there!

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Analyst Emerging Investigator Lectureship Awardee

We are delighted to announce Patrick Hayes the winner of the inaugural Analyst Emerging Investigator Lectureship.

This lectureship was launched as a platform for an early career analytical scientist to raise the profile of the analytical sciences to the wider scientific community and general public. The candidates were asked to submit an original essay of no more than 1000 words highlighting the significant and wide-reaching impact on scientific and societal issues related to this year’s theme of health in the analytical sciences. The awardee receives up to £2000 contribution towards travel and accommodation costs to attend and present a lecture based on their research at a leading international meeting. Their essay will also be published as a Perspective article in Analyst.

The Editorial Board had a very difficult decision with so many exceptional and high quality submissions. Congratulations to Patrick!

Introducing Patrick Hayes:

Patrick Hayes is Assistant Professor of the Atmospheric and Analytical Chemistry Group at the Université de Montréal since Summer 2013. He obtained his PhD in Analytical Chemistry at Northwestern University, USA. His postdoctoral CIRES fellowship was performed at the University of Colorado. His research group focusses on the chemistry of atmospheric aerosols and the study of fundamental chemical and physical interations occurring at solid/liquid interfaces important to the environment. He has more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, and has given more than 20 oral presentations, including 7 invited lectures. He has also served as a Member of the Board of Directors for the Environmental Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada.

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Editor’s Choice: Jean-Francois Masson selects his top Analyst papers in the field of sensing and clinical assays

Analyst Associate Editor, Professor Jean-François Masson (Université de Montréal, Canada) has selected his Top 5 articles published in the field of sensing and clinical assays in recent issues of Analyst.

Professor Masson is Professor in the Department of Chemistry of the Université de Montréal. His research areas are sensing using plasmonic techniques, surface chemistry, metallic nanomaterials and portable instrumentation design for sensing of biomolecules and drugs in crude biofluids for improved clinical assays.

Read what Professor Masson’s Editor’s Choice thinks about the Top 5 he has selected below– all articles are free to access for the next 4 weeks!


Therapeutic drug monitoring in dried blood spots using liquid microjunction surface sampling and high-resolution mass spectrometry

Tanja Gaissmaier et al., Analyst, 2016, 141, 892, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN02302E

Therapeutic drug monitoring is increasingly performed to ensure safe usage of drugs for the treatment of medical conditions. The analysis of dried blood samples is an interesting approach for rapid and minimally invasive clinical assays and for forensic sciences. In this study, the authors report microjunction sampling of dried blood spots in conjunction with mass spectrometry for different therapeutic drugs. This method showed lower limits of detection than comparable techniques and it was applied to the analysis of blood samples from donors, providing a proof-of-concept of actual use of this technique in clinical laboratories.

A microfluidic indirect competitive immunoassay for multiple and sensitive detection of testosterone in serum and urine

Huashan Wang et al., Analyst, 2016, 141, 815, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN01835H

The detection of testosterone is of importance in sport doping and in clinical chemistry. However, the detection of testosterone is often challenging. The authors propose a microfluidic device for detecting testosterone in serum and urine samples with an indirect chemiluminescence assay. The authors applied the optimized assay for the analysis of a series of human serum samples. They went one step further with the comparison of the results obtained with their assay with two commercial ELISA kits. The authors confirmed that their technique was in good agreement with the current state-of-the-art, an important step in the validation of a new method.

Microchip-based electrochemical detection using a 3-D printed wall-jet electrode device

Akash S. Munshi and R. Scott Martin, Analyst, 2016, 141, 862, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN01956G

3-D printing is changing ways of prototyping and fabricating industrial devices. Recently, a few articles introduced 3-D printing in analytical sciences for the fabrication of detectors and fluidic devices. In this article, the authors go a step further with the application 3-D printing method for the fabrication of an electrochemical microfluidic cell with a wall-jet electrode. The authors report an improved detection limit with this device in electrochemical experiments and they integrated the electrochemical microfluidic unit as a detector in HPLC. This study demonstrates the usefulness and advantages of 3-D printing in analytical prototyping.

Determination of the ratio of fluorophore/ nanoparticle for fluorescence-labelled nanoparticles

Mario Menendez-Miranda et al., Analyst, 2016, 141, 1266, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN02405F

While nanoparticles modified with fluorophore are now commonly used in sensing or in imaging techniques, their characterization remains challenging. In this article, the authors propose a general method addressing the current limitations for purification and characterization of the fluorophore-nanoparticle conjugate. They purified several fluorophore-nanoparticle conjugates with centrifugation and electrophoresis and then applied UV-Vis and ICP-MS to characterize the fluorophore to nanoparticle ratio for a series of nanoparticles modified with different fluorophores, demonstrating the broad applicability of their method. This technique will be useful to the large community of researchers designing new fluorescent nanoparticles.

Picric acid capped silver nanoparticles as a probe for colorimetric sensing of creatinine in human blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples

Ankita K. Parmar et al., Analyst, 2016, 141, 1488, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN02303C

The application of nanoplasmonics in clinical chemistry is increasingly proposed to provide rapid and sensitive clinical tests. However, validation of nanoplasmonics in clinical samples remains relatively rare. In this study, the authors showed a nanoparticle aggregation assay for creatinine working in diluted blood and cerebrospinal fluids. The Ag nanoparticles were modified with picric acid for the selective detection of creatinine. The selectivity was shown with a series of 29 small molecules and 8 common ions. The results obtained with this technique were in good agreement with the current test for creatinine. This article reports on an example of the application of nanoplasmonics for targeted detection of a molecule of clinical interest in biofluids.

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Editor’s Choice: Takehiko Kitamori selects his top Analyst papers by Japanese authors

Analyst Associate Editor, Professor Takehiko Kitamori (University of Tokyo, Japan) has selected his Top 5 articles published by Japanese authors recently published in Analyst.

Professor Kitamori is former Vice President of the University of Tokyo and is also a Professor in the Department of Applied Chemistry. His areas of research are micro/extended-nano fluidics, integration of chemical systems on microchips, applied laser spectroscopy for ultrasensitive detection, analytical chemistry, and extended-nano space chemistry.

Below, see what Takehiko says about each of the articles he has selected- all of which are free to access for the next 4 weeks!


Temperature-responsive molecular recognition chromatography using phenylalanine and tryptophan derived polymer modified silica beads

Yuki Hiruta et al., Analyst, 2016, 141, 910-917, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN01996F

Molecular recognition characteristics were realized in temperature-responsive chromatography using a temperature-controllable stationary phase and water as the sole mobile phase, which has been continuously developed by the authors. Functionalizing poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-modified stationary phase by aromatic amino acids dramatically increases the retention times of aromatic steroids and aromatic amino acids in the separation. The method has potential in the separation of complex and delicate peptides, proteins and antibodies, which is important in biomedical and biochemical analysis.

Nanoparticle-assisted laser desorption/ionization using sinapic acid-modified iron oxide nanoparticles for mass spectrometry analysis

Hanaka Komori et al., Analyst, 2015, 140, 8134-8137, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN02081F

Very useful iron oxide nanoparticles for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry was reported, which greatly suppresses the background noise by self-ionization of ionization-assisting material. While conventional ionization methods and instruments have limitations by the molecular weight of the analyte, their new method allowed analysis of various molecules at wide-range molecular weights (102-104) such as pesticides, plant hormones, peptides and proteins.

DNA sensor’s selectivity enhancement and protection from contaminating nucleases due to a hydrated ionic liquid

Hisae Tateishi-Karimata et al., Analyst, 2015, 140, 4393-4398, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN00545K

The authors discovered that using the hydrated ionic liquid can enhance the selectivity of DNA sequence sensing by 10,000 times, due to stabilization of the triplex structure of DNA and inhibition of DNA degradation by contaminating nuclease. The DNA sensor using the hydrated ionic liquid greatly contributes to detection of disease-related genes in genetic diagnosis.

Affinity imaging mass spectrometry (AIMS): high-throughput screening for specific small molecule interactions with frozen tissue sections

T. Yoshimi et al., Analyst, 2015, 140, 7202-7208, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN01381J

A new imaging mass spectrometry system coupled with affinity-based imaging was applied to screening of chemical compounds with high affinity for Alzheimer’s disease brain. The method is very selective and applicable widely for organs and tissues, which will be important in medical diagnosis and cell biology.

Micro-thermography in millimeter-scale animals by using orally-dosed fluorescent nanoparticle thermosensors

Satoshi Arai et al., Analyst, 2015, 140, 7534-7539, DOI: 10.1039/C5AN01287B

The authors developed polymer nano-particles including temperature sensitive and less temperature sensitive dye, which allowed temperature sensing in millimeter tissue with self-calibration. Ratio-metric temperature mapping of fruit fly larva was successfully demonstrated with good temperature resolution (< 1 degree).

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Analytical Science Twitter Poster Conference 2016

We are delighted to announce the Analytical Science Twitter Poster Conference (#RSCAnalyticalPoster) will be happening March 17th to March 18th!

The Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Science Twitter Poster Conference is an online event being held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.

© iStock

How do I take part?

During the event simply tweet an image (e.g. JPEG) which will be a digital poster summarising your research along with #RSCAnalyticalPoster and the title of your work. Throughout the day you can then answer any questions posed to you by other people on Twitter and ask questions about other posters. Make sure you follow #RSCAnalyticalPoster throughout the day as the conference progresses.

When is it?

Posters tweeted with #RSCAnalyticalPoster between 9am GMT March 17th and 9am GMT March 18th will be eligible to win prizes. Make sure you ask and answer lots of questions to ensure your work is well understood!

Is my research area suitable?

The conference is open to anyone working in any area of science whose research topic is in the scope of Analyst, Analytical Methods or JAAS. If you’re unsure if your poster is suitable for the conference, just get in touch and we can advise.

What can I win?

The main aim of the event is to meet new scientists, share ideas and learn about the latest developments in different areas of analytical science. The scientific committee will also select posters which stimulate wide interest and feature innovative, high quality, exciting analytical research. Posters prizes will be awarded for content & accessibility, design and researcher interaction with the conference. There will also be an audience award for the most tweeted poster.

Who is organising the event and how do I find them?

At different points throughout the day members of the scientific committee will be logging in to Twitter and searching for #RSCAnalyticalPoster to ask questions about some of the posters. Make sure you check back in at different times to see if you have any new questions and also make sure you ask questions about other posters. Members of the scientific committee and their Twitter names are listed below and make sure you follow us @analystrsc @MethodsRSC and @JAASNews for the latest updates.

Chair and Organisers

Matt Baker, University of Strathclyde, UK @ChemistryBaker

Craig Banks, Manchester Metropolitan University @Act_mmu

Sam Illingworth, Manchester Metropolitan University @samillingworth

Ed Randviir, Manchester Metropolitan University, @RandviirScience

Royal Society of Chemistry- Analyst @analystrsc, Analytical Methods @MethodsRSC and JAAS @JAASNews

Scientific Committee

© iStock

Damien Arrigan, Curtin University @arri_aus

Perdita Barran, The Universityof Manchester @PerditaB

Raychelle Burks, Doane College @DrRubidium

Richard Dluhy, UAB College of Arts and Sciences @radluhy

Carsten Engelhard, Universität Siegen @EngelhrC

Karen Faulds, University of Strathclyde @FauldsKaren

Roy Goodacre, The University of Manchester @RoyGoodacre

Renee JiJi, University of Missouri @ReneeJiJi

Simon Lewis, Curtin University @SimonWLewis

Jean-Francois Masson, University of Montreal @Masson_chem

Martin Resano, University of Zaragoza @MartinResano

Nick Stone, University of Exeter @profnickstone

Renee Webster, Monash University @reneewebs

How do I register?

Pre-registration is not necessary; however we will need to verify who you are and where you do your research to be eligible for the prizes. We strongly recommend you do this before the event by emailing us at and letting us know:

•  Your name, address and contact details

•  The title or topic of your poster

•  Your twitter ID

Register for #RSCAnalyticalPoster

We look forward to meeting you in March!

© Shutterstock

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to check the copyright and permissions needed for figures or any other parts of my poster which have already been published?

Yes. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner’s permission. If you are reproducing material contained in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication (journal articles, book or book chapters) you may do so providing that you fully acknowledge the original Royal Society of Chemistry publication and include a link back to it. If you wish to include material that has been published by another publisher, you will need to check how the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material wishes to receive permission requests. Information on this can be found on our Permission Requests page under “Use of third party material in our publications”.

If I include unpublished work in my poster, will I still be able to publish this in a peer-reviewed journal afterwards?

Subject to the usual conditions outlined in the Licence to Publish, being a part of the Twitter conference will not prevent you using some of the information included in your poster as part of an article in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. Please note this policy varies by publisher and if you intend to submit your research for publication elsewhere after the event, you should check the individual policy for that journal and publisher.

What size should my poster be?

You can choose any dimensions for your poster, the important thing is that the text and figures are clear for people to read and understand. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, we found a text size of between 12-16 were clear to read when saving an A4 slide as a JPEG and uploading to Twitter. Using an A0 template, the text needed to be between 50 and 60 to be legible. You can use any software you like to create your poster, as long as the image you upload is clear for others to read. We recommend testing your poster on Twitter before the conference to make sure you are happy with your image.

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Themed Issue on Innovative Tools for Cancer Screening, Detection and Diagnostics now published

The new themed issue for Analyst on innovative tools for cancer screening, detection and diagnostics is now published.

Guest Edited by Professor Steve Soper, University of North Carolina, USA and Dr Avraham Rasooly, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, USA, this collection is devoted to new technologies focused on the management of cancer-related diseases and covers a broad spectrum of new innovations including optical sensors (SERS, fluorescence, plasmon resonance, etc.), drug delivery vehicles, affinity agents, imaging contrast agents, microfluidics/nanofluidics and cell-based assays to name a few.

Cancer remains a devastating disease with 580,350 deaths and 1.66 million new cases reported in the US alone in 2013.  With 7.5 million deaths worldwide, cancer is the number 1 killer globally. Although 5-year survival rates have risen from 50% in 1975-77 to 68% in 2003-2008, major challenges remain toward further improving survival rates. The keys to realizing increased 5-year survival rates depend on significant improvements in early detection strategies as well as personalized treatment selection and effectively monitoring for disease recurrence. All of these focus areas can be enhanced through the development of new technological tools. Thus, this themed issue serves as a timely dissemination of new technologies that hold promise for the management of a variety of cancer-related diseases.

Enjoy!

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EUROPT[R]ODE XIII Conference Registration Now Open

Registration is now open for the EUROPT[R]ODE XIII Conference taking place the University of Graz, Austria on the 20th – 23rd March, 2016.

Sponsored by Analyst, the biannual EUROPT[R]ODE conference is one of the major conference series on optical sensors. Since 1992, the EUROPT[R]ODE conference has been a forum for scientists and engineers from academia, research institutes and industry from all over the world.

We hope to see you there!

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Call for papers: Themed issue on surface-enhanced Raman scattering

You are invited to contribute to the upcoming Analyst themed issue showcasing the latest discoveries and developments in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).

For your article to be considered for the SERS themed issue we must receive your manuscript by April 15th 2016.

Guest Edited by Professors Duncan Graham (University of Strathclyde, UK), Richard Van Duyne (Northwestern University, USA) and Bin Ren (Xiamen University, China) this upcoming themed issue will be dedicated to this innovative field.

SERS has become a mature vibrational spectroscopic technique in the chemical, material, and life sciences. Recently there has been significant development in this area of research and now is an ideal time to have a special issue dedicated to recent advances.

Both Communications and full papers are welcomed, if you are interested in submitting a paper for this themed issue please contact us to let us know.

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