25 Years of JAAS and Speciation

The 25th anniversary—in many countries referred to as a silver jubilee—of the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry gives an occasion to underline its role as one of the leading journals of the analytical spectrometric community. Some members of the Editorial Board have already presented their memories going back to the very beginnings and early days of the journal, others evoked their personal history of not only reading JAAS but also publishing in it. When I think about JAAS, the first thing that comes to mind is the role the journal has played in the promotion of atomic spectrometric detection in chromatography and the 25-year long relationship between JAAS and speciation analysis.

The concept of hyphenated techniques, based on the coupling of a separation method, such as gas or liquid chromatography or capillary and later on gel electrophoresis, with an element specific atomic spectrometric detector, was born at the end of the seventies. It was immediately embraced by JAAS and has rapidly become one of the most important topics reported in the journal. The D'Ulivo and Papoff paper (JAAS, 1, 479–484) on the simultaneous detection of alkylmetal compounds by gas chromatography using multi-channel non-dispersive atomic fluorescence spectrometry encouraged the Antwerp, Cincinnati, Oviedo, Plymouth, and other groups to publish in JAAS. Their studies on atomic absorption and microwave induced and inductively coupled plasma emission and mass spectrometric detection in gas chromatography made the journal an appreciated platform for the dissemination of research in speciation analysis, often in symbiosis with the Winter Conferences on Plasma Spectrochemistry.

In 1987 JAAS was the home of the seminal paper by Dean et al. (JAAS, 2, 607–610) reporting the HPLC-ICP MS coupling for metalloprotein studies. This article introduced ICP MS to life sciences and has been present later on in JAAS in many different ways, contributing to the establishment and progress of bioinorganic analytical chemistry. Today, speciation analysis is the topic of one third of the 20 top JAAS papers with the highest Scopus citation score!

Browsing the volumes of JAAS is a good way to follow the history of the development of species-selective analysis. We find early reports witnessing the excitement of getting nice presentable element-specific chromatograms, both in gas and liquid phase, such a big improvement in comparison with those obtained with the classical detectors which were difficult to interpret. The fundamental paper by Heumann et al. on elemental speciation with liquid chromatography-ICP isotope dilution MS (JAAS, 1994, 9, 1351–1355) set the ever valid standard for the quantification of element species, the concept which was widely accepted and used by many groups all over the world.

Despite the overwhelming weight of ICP MS in JAAS the journal was not dogmatic about the presence of the word “atomic” in its title. As soon as it turned out that ICP MS detection was unable to identify the ever increasing number of detected species in biological matrices, JAAS opened itself to molecular mass spectrometry. The dual ICP MS and electrospray MS detection (JAAS, 1996, 11, 871–876) in multidimensional chromatography developed in the late nineties by our group in Pau has resulted in the increasing presence of molecular MS techniques using electrospray and MALDI ionization in JAAS.

Attaining the legal age in 2004 meant it was time to think about JAAS offspring. The January issue of that year edited by Jakubowski, Lobinski and Moens consecrated JAAS as an attractive place for publishing research on analytical chemistry of metallobiomolecules and actually contained an important paper by Haraguchi introducing the science of metallomics. Five years later, a new journal Metallomics was born and aided by many former JAAS Editorial and Advisory Editorial Board members and contributors. This has undoubtedly temporarily weakened the facet of life-sciences being gradually gained by the journal and reduced the amount of speciation-related research. But JAAS is about to bounce back. A special issue focused on speciation is expected in 2011!

The 25 year-old interaction between the element speciation community and JAAS has resulted in the publication of many outstanding papers reporting excellent research opening new perspectives and stimulating scientists to even more creative work. At the age of 25 life is just starting. I do believe that JAAS will fill it with even more attractive contents and records of continuous success. I wish the journal to become a haven of research for the future generation of analytical atomic spectroscopists and I am looking forward to the golden jubilee celebration in 2035!

Joanna Szpunar

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