Analyst Blog

Analyst welcomes Professor Karen Faulds (University of Strathclyde, UK) as our newest Associate Editor.

Karen Faulds is a Professor in the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde and an expert in the development of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and Raman techniques for novel analytical detection strategies and in particular multiplexed bioanalytical applications. She has published over 140 peer reviewed publications and has filed 5 patents. She has been awarded over £20M in funding as principal and co-investigator from EPSRC, BBSRC, charities, industry and governmental bodies. Her Groups research has been recognised through multiple awards including the Nexxus Young Life Scientist of the Year Award (2009), Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Joseph Black Award (2013), Craver Award (2016) and Charles Mann Award (2019). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2012), the Society for Applied Spectroscopy (2017) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2018). She has been named as one of the Top 50 Women in Analytical Science (2016), Top 10 Spectroscopist (2017) and Top 100 Influential Analytical Scientists (2019) by The Analytical Scientist. She has given over 90 invited talks at national and international conferences.

She was elected as the first female and youngest Chair of the Infrared and Raman Discussion Group (IRDG) in 2014 which is the oldest spectroscopic discussion society in the UK. She is an appointed member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Chemical Biology Interface Division Council and a member of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) Governing Board and a member of the International Steering Committee of the International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy (ICORS). She is the Strathclyde Director of the EPSRC and MRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Optical Medical Imaging joint between the Universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde, serves on the editorial board of RSC Advances and the editorial advisory board for Analyst, Chemical Society Reviews and Analytical Chemistry.

Read some of Karen’s recent Analyst papers here:

DNA detection by SERS: Hybridisation parameters and the potential for asymmetric PCR

DOI: 10.1039/c9an01732a

Detection of cardiovascular disease associated miR-29a using paper-based microfluidics and surface enhanced Raman scattering

DOI: 10.1039/c9an01748h

Surface enhanced resonance Raman spectroscopy (SERRS) for probing through plastic and tissue barriers using a handheld spectrometer

DOI: 10.1039/c8an01249k

Development of a label-free Raman imaging technique for differentiation of malaria parasite infected from non-infected tissue

DOI: 10.1039/c7an01760j

Karen also served as a Guest Editor for Analyst‘s recent Analytical Nanoscience themed collection. You can read the collection here.

Submit your best work to Karen now!

Analyst is delighted to welcome a new Editor-in-Chief, Norm Dovichi. 

Norman Dovichi is an emeritus professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame. He received his BSc with a dual major in Chemistry and Mathematics from Northern Illinois University and his PhD in Physical Analytical Chemistry from the University of Utah, where he was Joel Harris’s first PhD student. He spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory with Dick Keller. Since then he has held faculty positions at the Universities of Wyoming, Alberta, and Washington before moving to Notre Dame. Dovichi has graduated 69 PhD students, has published over 300 papers, holds seven US patents, and has given over 350 invited talks. He has served on the editorial advisory boards of 16 journals and served as Associate Editor for Analytical Chemistry for 17 years. He also has been named as an honorary professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

His group played a pioneering role in a range of research topics in analytical chemistry. In the 1980s, he introduced the concept of single molecule detection to the chemical literature; in recognition for this work, he was invited as a plenary lecturer at the Nobel Conference on Single Molecule Spectroscopy held in 1999. In the 1990s, his group developed capillary array electrophoresis instruments for high-throughput DNA sequencing. He was recognized for this work by the journal Science as an “Unsung Hero of the Human Genome Project” and he was a plenary lecturer at the symposium on the Evolution of DNA Sequencing Technology, held at Cold Springs Harbor in 2015. Over the last decade, his group has focused its attention on coupling capillary electrophoresis with tandem mass spectrometry as a tool for high throughput and high sensitivity proteomic analysis. This instrumentation has been patented and is now marked by CMP Scientific and Agilent. Finally, his group has recently coupled capillary electrophoresis with next-generation DNA sequencing for the comprehensive metagenomic analysis of complex environmental microbiomes.

Analyst would also like to take this opportunity to thank our previous Editor-in-Chief, Professor Duncan Graham, for his service to the journal.

Submit your best work to Norm and our team of Associate Editors now! 

What goes up, must come down...

We are all passionate scientists, but we all have a “dark” side. I know for example that Professor Pat Unwin at Warwick University is an accomplished musician, likewise, Professor Dermot Diamond at Dublin City University. And myself? I run. I run trail races. I run ultra trail races.

What’s the meaning of “ultra”? Well, anything beyond a marathon: 45k… 50k… 70k… 100k… 160k… and beyond! I just ran across the beautiful island of Corsica – 5 days, a whopping 185k, 12,000m of altitude up and all the way down again. Tough? Yes… but doable! Admittedly, you go through 10 “runners highs” and 25+ “runners lows”. But in the end – doable! And after that adventure, I asked myself, how different are profession and passion actually? Maybe we should explore this a little further…

Let’s consider an example – writing an EU proposal or an ERC grant? Tough? Yes… but doable! And honestly, there are at least 10 “proposal highs” and 25+ “proposal lows” you go through. So, how different are profession and passion? Let’s see by comparing writing a major proposal versus preparing for an ultra trail race!

1. It’s all about preparation – A clear “yes” for both!

2. You need to focus – True, relevant in both cases!

3. Preliminary results are important –  It’s all about knowing what you are up to… tick the box for both!

4. Step outside your comfort zone –  No new achievements without breaking new ground. Ticked!

5. Physical and mental fitness –  A prerequisite, right?

6. You never know whether you will be successful, unless you try –  Guess we agree! Ticked!

7. If you fail, try again, fail better –  Ticked for both!

8. Never give up –  Who would ever do that?

After all, not so different right? Seems there is a lot of analogy between preparing a proposal and preparing for an ultra trail race! Whether you are a musician, an ultra trail runner, a scientist or an interdisciplinary combination, if you do it with passion, it may be tough, but it is doable!

See you on the next (ultra) trail! And don’t forget 9. Any step is a step closer to the finish line 😉 Cheers, Boris

More stories on Europe’s toughest trek: Corsica GR20 can be found here