Themed collection 150th Anniversary Collection: Highly Cited Articles

The problem of quality control in the metabonomics/metabolomic analysis of biofluids using chromatographic methods combined with mass spectrometry is described, and a pragmatic solution is suggested and exemplified.

Different types of carbon based electrodes have emerged over the last few years, significantly changing the scope and sensitivity of electroanalytical methods for the measurement of diverse targets.

The emergence of nanotechnology is opening new horizons for electrochemical biosensors. This Highlight illustrates how the unique properties of nanoparticles, nanowires and nanotubes can be exploited for creating a new generation of bioelectronic devices and for enhancing existing sensing devices.

This review highlights the importance and benefit of the role of integrated tools in metabolomic research.

The application of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) for two-class, one-class and multiclass supervised learning and for calibration is illustrated both using simulations and experimental case studies.

This review highlights and discusses critically various knowledge gaps in classification modelling using PLS-DA for high dimensional data.

This paper presents a critical review of recent research progress in plasmonic sensors, plasmon-enhanced fluorescence sensors, and surface-enhanced Raman scattering sensors. It places emphasis on the sensor design strategies, and highlights the applications of sensors in healthcare, homeland security, food safety and environmental monitoring.

Due to the significance of hydrogen peroxide in biological systems and practical applications, the development of efficient electrochemical H₂O₂ sensors holds a special attraction for researchers. The aim of this review is to summarize the recent advances since 2000 and gain an insight into the materials used in the electrocatalytic sensing of H₂O₂.

This article reviews recent developments in optical biolabeling and bio-imaging involving upconversion nanoparticles, simultaneously bringing to the forefront the desirable characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of these luminescent nanomaterials.

Fluorescent sensors can be rationally designed according to the ‘fluorophore–spacer–receptor’ system in order to solve various problems in analytical science.

In this forward-looking overview we describe the near-field interactions of fluorophores with metallic nanostructures and how these effects can be used to enhance current measurements and to enable a new class of devices based on the manipulation of the excited-state energy of fluorophores in metallic nanostructures.

A comprehensive review of the history, scope and limitations of sequential chemical extraction, with guidelines and recommendations for its best use in studying the environmental behaviour of potentially toxic elements

This review focuses on a selective number of recent studies where metabolic fingerprinting has been forwarded as a potential tool for disease diagnosis using infrared and Raman spectroscopies.

The study of complex microbial, plant and mammalian metabolomes (termed metabolomics) provides great challenges to analytical and data processing methodologies. This review details how these challenges are being overcome.

Nanospray desorption electrospray ionization (nano-DESI) mass spectrometry is an ambient pressure liquid extraction-ionization technique for analysis of organic and biological molecules on substrates. We present analytical capabilities of the method and discuss its potential for imaging applications.

The methodology combines two molecular windows containing the majority of the metabolic information available by ¹H NMR from native serum, e.g. lipids, lipoprotein subclasses as well as various low-molecular-weight metabolites.

Classification of unprocessed Raman spectra using a convolutional neural network.

A facile one-step hydrothermal synthesis of multifunctional carbon dots from coriander leaves for versatile applications is reported.

We present a generalized table of extinction coefficient data for silver nanoparticles, to allow calculation of silver nanoparticle concentrations.

We have been the first to find that BSA-MnO₂ nanoparticles possess both high peroxidase- and oxidase-like activities with o-phenylenediamine (OPD) and 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) substrates.

Metal–organic framework MIL-101(Cr) microcrystals were magnetized and explored for rapid magnetic solid-phase extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from environmental water samples.

A general comparison of the accuracy and robustness of five multivariate calibration models (PLS, Poly-PLS, ANN, SVR, LS-SVM) is made.

A 384-well format hanging drop culture plate that enables spheroid formation, culture, and drug testing using existing high-throughput screening instruments.

Wax screen-printing as a low-cost, simple, and rapid method for fabricating paper-based microfluidic devices (µPADs) is reported here.

Highly fluorescent gold nanoclusters were prepared by using lysozyme and were used for sensitive and selective Hg²⁺ detection.

A novel algorithm named adaptive iteratively reweighted Penalized Least Squares (airPLS) is proposed for baseline correction in analytical chemistry. By investigating the correction result using real data, it proved to be simple but flexible, valid and fast for baseline estimation.

CuO nanowires were prepared and applied for the fabrication of non-enzymatic glucose sensors with highly enhanced sensitivity.

The electrochemical oxidation of NADH is explored with edge plane and basal plane pyrolytic graphite electrodes and is used to provide insights into the nature of the active sites for NADH oxidation at carbon nanotube modified electrodes.