Editorial pubs.acs.org/acssensors
Big Moves in Biosensing ost fields evolve in a similar manner. They go through periods of exceedingly rapid change, and then periods where there is a much more gradual shift in thinking. One could almost think it is Darwinian evolution, although there is a fashion element to big changes in a field and I do not think fashion can be regarded as Darwinian. Every now and then there is a conference that captures the zeitgeist and it is apparent to all attending the conference that a change is upon us. For the biosensing field it became very clear in May, at the 26th Anniversary World Congress on Biosensors 2016 in Gothenburg, Sweden, that the winds of change are rushing past. This was the first World Congress on Biosensors since the launch of ACS Sensors, but the shift in the field was scientific, not publishing. The science at the conference was outstanding! In the exhibition hall the conversation revolved around not one, but three, major shifts in the field. For those of us who attended this meeting in Melbourne, Australia two years previously, it was particularly evident. So what are the major changes I allude to? Well, one was an engineering change, another a materials change, and the third was very conceptual. The first change was embraced in the opening plenary by Aydogan Ozcan from University of California, Los Angeles, and it was all about the rise in the use of mobile phones, in particular, the power of mobile phone cameras for biosensing. This is not to say that it was only optical, as there was also a talk by Conor Hogan from La Trobe University in Australia on using the AC signal of the microphone jack to do AC voltammetry, but it was mostly about the cameras and their amazing pixel resolution. We have seen some of this type of work in the first few issues of ACS Sensors (see, for example, DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.5b00204 or DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.5b00100), and we expect to see much more. The excitement over the cameras, of course, is partly due to the direct relationship to wearable sensors, on which we recently published a Perspective by Joe Wang from University of California, San Diego (DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.6b00250). The materials change was all about paper and, in particular, paper fluidics. For example, ACS Sensors EAB member, Fran Ligler, from North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, spoke about using paper pumps to move fluids around. Others spoke on efficient methods for making paper fluidics or entire paper-based sensors. Again, ACS Sensors has seen a lot on this topic already, including our very first cover paper by Dick Crooks from University of Texas, Austin (DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.5b00051). The conceptual change was in single molecule sensing, taking it from the detection of single molecules toward quantitative analysis. This is the topic I spoke on, but there were many other talks. Stunning talks on this topic include one on digital assays in droplets by the Lammertyn group from Leuven, Belgium, and an excellent presentation on single molecule detection of plasmonic particles by Menno Prins from the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands. I have also recently cowritten a review on the opportunities and challenges
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© 2016 American Chemical Society
in making single molecule sensors for quantitative analysis which will appear soon in Angewandte Chemie. We have seen very little on this topic thus far in ACS Sensors, but our last issue had one related paper (DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.6b00014). Currently such papers mostly appear in tabloid journals, but as the field develops, we expect and hope to see more of these papers in ACS Sensors. There were also many excellent talks on other important topics at the World Congress on Biosensors. What the conference, as a whole, made patently clear is that it is an exciting time to be not just a biosensor researcher, but a sensor researcher in general. At ACS Sensors we really hope you will keep sending us your best biosensing research and your best sensing research. We think the first few issues have been fantastic and so our authors have already taken us a long way toward making ACS Sensors a top class journal that covers all aspects of sensors detecting chemical and biological species or processes. We thank you for your support and your inspirational science.
J. Justin Gooding, Editor-in-Chief
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The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
Received: June 1, 2016 Published: June 24, 2016 633
DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.6b00362 ACS Sens. 2016, 1, 633−633
