Editorial pubs.acs.org/ac
The 2017 Annual Review Issue
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nyone who doubts that analytical chemistry is a vital discipline should be directed to this issue of the journal. We invited over 20 authors to review developments in instrumentation and applications in selected areas of chemical analysis. They describe stunning advances in a variety of methods and applications. Clearly, analytical tools are getting cheaper and more available as seen in reviews on paper microfluidics, 3-D printing, digital assays, and point of care diagnostics. Several reviews tackle the impact of nanoscale and novel materials as enabling technology for a variety of sensors and assays. Amazing advances in single cell analysis and sensor biocompatibility are making routine what seemed like science fiction just a decade ago. The selected reviews also show that clever application of analytical chemistry is helping to push the frontier of many important areas such as environmental analysis, food characterization, glycomics, metabolomics, cell imaging, and neuroscience. The review issue captures a wide range of activities that contribute to improving chemical measurements including developing new materials, reagents, and instrumentation. The authors of this issue also highlight the diversity of researchers that are contributing to chemical analysis. Diversity is geographical with contributions from around the world, career stage with new and established investigators being represented, and disciplinary with contributors from not only chemistry but other fields such as biomedical engineering. In short, the selected reviews show a discipline that continues to expand and impact our view of the world. The review authors have performed a herculean task in defining an area for review and selecting key articles, from thousands published, that promise to drive the area forward. I am personally grateful for their expertise and care that they have taken in searching the literature, defining the field, and writing these articles. In every case, these authoritative articles teach us about the scope of analytical research and its new boundaries. I hope that in reading the reviews you are inspired with new research ideas, educated about the developments in your field, and appreciative of the community that makes analytical chemistry such an exciting discipline. Although this snapshot of the field is exciting, it only covers a tiny fraction of the field of analytical chemistry. Therefore, we will be back next year with more reviews and more new developments.
Robert T. Kennedy
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS. Special Issue: Fundamental and Applied Reviews in Analytical Chemistry 2017 Published: January 3, 2017 © 2017 American Chemical Society
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.6b04899 Anal. Chem. 2017, 89, 1−1
