EDITORIAL

Meet the contributors

Nicola Oberbeckmann-Winter1

Published online: 3 June 2019# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

This special issue features young investigators by highlightingrecent research activities of rising stars in analytical andbioanalytical science. We are grateful for the overwhelmingfeedback we have received and thank all contributors for gen-erously providing excellent research articles, critical reviews,and trend articles from the forefront of their research. Below,we invite you to meet those who contributed to this exception-al paper collection.

Christopher Baker is Assistant Professor in the Departmentof Chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK).He earned his PhD from Florida State University in 2012, andwas a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona(2012–2014), and Sandia National Labs (2014–2015). His re-search group at UTK develops microfluidics and separations-based technologies to characterize neuroendocrine mechanismsof neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.

Francesca Bettazzi is a postdoctoral researcher at theDepartment of Chemistry of the University of Florence. Herresearch interests are the development of electrochemical bio-sensors for the detection of clinically and environmentallyrelevant molecules.

Francesco Cacciola is Associate Professor of Food Chemistryat the University of Messina. Since graduation, he has been in-volved in the application of innovative analytical techniques, inparticular, comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatogra-phy, for the characterization of bioactive molecules in food andnatural products. He was recently shortlisted for The AnalyticalScientist’s Top 40 Under 40 Power List, which aims to shine alight on young scientists shaping cutting-edge technologies.

Published in the topical collection Young Investigators in (Bio-)AnalyticalChemistry with guest editors Erin Baker, Kerstin Leopold, FrancescoRicci, and Wei Wang.

* Nicola Oberbeckmann-Winternicola.oberbeckmann-winter@springer.com

1 Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Springer, Tiergartenstrasse17, 69121 Heidelberg, Germany

Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (2019) 411:4235–4250https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-01935-7

Stefano Cinti is a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in theNanobioelectronics and Biosensors group headed by Prof.Arben Merkoci at ICN2, Barcelona. He obtained his PhDin chemical sciences in 2016 in the group headed by Prof.Giuseppe Palleschi at the Department of Chemical Scienceand Technologies, University of Rome Tor Vergata. Hisresearch interests include the development of electrochem-ical sensors, paper-based devices, nanomotors, andnanomaterials. He is a member of the board of theChemical Cultural Diffusion group and of the YoungGroup of Italian Chemical Society.

Wendell K. T. Coltro is Associate Professor, Head of theMicrofluidics and Electrophoresis Laboratory, andDirector of the Chemistry Institute at the FederalUniversity of Goias, Brazil. In the beginning of 2018, hewas nominated as an affiliate member of the BrazilianAcademy of Science as a young researcher. His researchinterests involve the development of electrophoresis chips,disposable electrochemical sensors, toner- and paper-basedmicrofluidic devices, as well as 3D-printed droplet-basedmicrofluidic chips for applications in analytical/bioanalytical and forensic chemistry.

Marta Costas Rodríguez received her PhD in chemistryfrom the University of Vigo (Galicia, Spain) in 2011. Herthesis project focused on method development for elementalanalysis of biological samples by spectrometry, particularlyfor the authentication of seafood. From 2012 to date, she hasbeen a postdoctoral researcher (currently with a fellowshipfrom the Flemish Research Foundation FWO – Flanders) inthe Atomic and Mass Spectrometry (A&MS) research groupof Prof. Frank Vanhaecke at Ghent University, in Belgium.Currently, her main research interests are high-precision iso-topic analysis by multicollector ICP-MS and bioimaging (spa-tially resolved elemental analysis) using laser ablation (MC)-ICP-MS; both for clinical applications.

Roberta D’Agata has a PhD in chemical sciences and isAssistant Professor at the Chemistry Department, Universityof Catania. In 2010, she was awarded the BAmbrogioMazzucotelli Prize^ for the novelty, relevance, and qualityof the results she achieved in the analytical spectroscopic field.In 2013, she was awarded BBest Researcher^, University ofCatania. The objective of her research is to employ surfaceplasmon resonance imaging (SPRI) and microfluidic-basedplatforms for DNA and RNA detection in various fields oflife sciences, for both applicative and research purposes.

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Chaoqing Dong is Associate Professor in the School ofChemistry and Chemical Engineering at Shanghai JiaoTong University, China. He received his PhD degree inapplied chemistry from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in2007. He worked as Postdoctoral Associate at PurdueUniversity in 2011–2012. His research interests are to de-velop single-molecule detection methods for application insingle-cell assays.

Haifeng Dong is Vice Dean of the Research Center forBioengineering and Sensing Technology, University ofScience and Technology Beijing, China. He was recognizedwith a National Excellent 100 Doctoral Dissertation AwardNomination in 2013. He was also awarded the second-classNatural Science Prize by EducationMinistry of China in 2018and the first-class Scientific and Technological Prize byChinese Association for Instrumental Analysis in 2018. Hefocuses on developing novel strategies for nucleic acid detec-tion and nanotheranostic platforms.

Berta Esteban-Fernández de Ávila is Postdoctoral Scholar-Employee in the Department of Nanoengineering at theUniversity of California, San Diego (USA). She received herEuropean PhD degree in analytical chemistry from theComplutense University of Madrid (Spain) in July 2014(Prof. Dr. José M. Pingarrón’s group). Her PhD focused onthe development of electrochemical immunosensors, DNA sen-sors, and analytical strategies for the determination of differentbacteria and cardiac biomarkers. During her PhD, she spentfour months as Visiting Scholar at the University of RomeTor Vergata (Italy) in the research group of Prof. GiuseppePalleschi, where she specialized in DNA sensors. After com-pleting her PhD, she moved to the Department ofNanoengineering at the UCSD as Postdoctoral Researcher inProf. Joseph Wang’s group. She is currently working on thepreparation of advanced nanomotors and nanosensors with ap-plications in the fields of biomedicine, healthcare, and security.

Zuzana Gajdosechova joined NRC Metrology in Ottawaafter receiving her PhD degree in environmental and analyti-cal chemistry from the University of Aberdeen in 2016. Shewas awarded the Thermo-Hilger Award in 2016 for her con-tribution to analytical atomic spectroscopy and the Seal ofExcellence by the European Commission in 2018. Her re-search focuses on studies of biotransformation of metals andmetalloids by using novel elemental speciation methods.

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Timothy J Garrett is currently Associate Professor in theDepartment of Pathology at the University of Florida andAssociate Director for the Southeast Center for IntegratedMetabolomics (SECIM). His research involves the applicationof lipidomic and metabolomics, from the development ofMALDI-based approaches to analyze lipids and small mole-cules with imaging mass spectrometry to deep metabolomediscovery using liquid chromatography–high resolution massspectrometry. Other current interests are in the application ofdirect tissue analysis approaches, such as MALDI, DESI, andLMJSSP, as well as the use of high-resolution mass spectrom-etry in metabolomics and routine diagnostics. He enjoys theinterplay between technological advancement and clinicalanalysis, providing unique opportunities and experiences todevelop future diagnostics.

Joseph Genereux is Assistant Professor in the Department ofChemistry at the University of California, Riverside. Joey re-ceived his Ph.D. at Caltech in 2010 and completed his post-doctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute. His groupdevelops analytical approaches that apply mass spectrometryto questions of protein conformation, stability, and trafficking.He is a recipient of a Starter Grant from the Society ofAnalytical Chemists of Pittsburgh.

Bienvenida Gilbert López is a postdoctoral researcher at theUniversity of Jaén (UJA), Spain. She has received awardsfrom the Andalusian and Spanish Analytical ChemistrySocieties (GRASEQA and SEQA), and the ExtraordinaryAward 2010–2011 from the Faculty of ExperimentalSciences of UJA for her PhD thesis. Her research is focusedon the development of greener analytical methods for the ex-traction and analysis of low-mass organic compounds (espe-cially those of interest in food science) by mass spectrometry,with experience in the use of novel ionization sources.

David Giménez-Romero is Assistant Professor ofChemistry at the University of Valencia, Spain. His re-search is focused on the development of new multiparam-eter biological analysis technologies to monitor conforma-tional dynamics of protein–protein interactions. The reac-tion pathways of these interactions are used for the diag-nosis and prognosis of autoimmune diseases, since theychange depending on the studied disease.

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Zhi-Yuan Gu is Jiangsu Distinguished Professor at NanjingNormal University, China. He is the recipient of an awardfrom the Young Elite Scholar Sponsorship program, ChinaAssociation of Science and Technology. His research interestis in the design of porous materials for sample preparation andchromatographic separation.

DavyGuillarme is a senior lecturer at the Analytical SciencesDepartment of the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Hisexpertise includes HPLC, UHPLC, HILIC, LC −MS, SFC,SFC-MS, analysis of proteins, mAbs, and ADCs. He isAssociate Editor of the Journal of Chromatography B. Hewas the recipient of the LC-GC Emerging Leader Award inChromatography in 2013 and the jubilee medal from theChromatographic Society in 2018.

Zsuzsanna Heiner is Head of the Photonics Lab and a JuliaLermontova Fellow in optical microspectroscopy at theSchool of Analytical Sciences Adlershof, HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin, Germany. She is developing next-generation ultrashort mid-infrared laser sources and nonlinearspectrometers for vibrational sum-frequency generation spec-troscopy, and applies them to the spectroscopic investigationof organic molecules at surfaces and interfaces. In recognitionof her outstanding work in this research field, she received theBunsen-Kirchhoff Award for Analytical Spectroscopy fromthe Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) in 2018.

Weihua Hu is currently Professor at the Institute for CleanEnergy and Advanced Materials, Faculty of Materials andEnergy, Southwest University. His current research interestslie in the development of label-free optical techniques andchips for bioanalysis.

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Andrea Idili is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute ofCollaborative Biotechnologies (ICB), University ofCalifornia Santa Barbara. He received his PhD degree in an-alytical chemistry under the supervision of Prof. FrancescoRicci at the University of Rome Tor Vergata in 2016. Hiscurrent research focuses on the design and characterizationof electrochemical aptamer-based (E-AB) sensors supportingthe real-time, continuous monitoring of diagnostically rele-vant molecules both in vitro and in vivo.

Kaveh Jorabchi established his independent researchgroup at Georgetown University (Washington, DC) in2011. He is currently Associate Professor in theDepartment of Chemistry. His research interests includedeveloping instrumentation and methods for high-sensitivity detection and standard-free absolute quantifi-cation of analytes using elemental tags, with applicationsin environmental, biomedical, and forensic analyses.

Ajith Karunarathne is Assistant Professor in the Departmentof Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Toledo,Ohio, USA. He developed G protein coupled receptor(GPCR)-based optogenetic tools to control subcellular signal-ing and cell behavior using light. He also develops imaging-based methods to measure signaling in single cells and sub-cellular regions. One of his publications was recently recog-nized as a top 100 paper of 2018 by Altmetric. He is theinstitutional coordinator for the ACS-Project SEED program,under which the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistryhosts local high school student during summer months to con-duct STEM research.

Ryan T. Kelly is Associate Professor in the Department ofChemistry and Biochemistry at Brigham Young Universitywith a joint appointment as Senior Research Scientist atPacific Northwest National Laboratory. His research inter-ests focus on the development of microfluidic sample han-dling, advanced separations, and ultrasensitive mass spec-trometry to increase the sensitivity and throughput of bio-chemical analyses.

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Conggang Li is Head of the In Situ BiomacromolecularSpectroscopy Team at the State Key Laboratory of MagneticResonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics in Wuhan,China. He has been working on the development of tools,especially NMR spectroscopy methods to analyze proteinstructure, stability, and interactions in complex environments.

Feng Li is Assistant Professor with cross appointments at theDepartment of Chemistry and Centre for Biotechnology,Brock University (St. Catharines, Canada). His research is atthe interface of bioanalytical chemistry and DNA nanotech-nology, and his current interests include fabricating analyticaldevices and portable equipment for field-deployable molecu-lar testing, developing DNA-assembled functionalnanomaterials and nanodevices, and simulation-guided de-signing of nucleic acid hybridization probes for diagnosticand medical applications.

Eleonora Macchia is Project Researcher at the AboAkademy University, Turku (Finland). She received herMaster’s degree in physics 110/110 cum laude from theUniversity of Bari in 2014 and her PhD in chemical and mo-lecular sciences summa cum laude from the same institution in2018, under the supervision of Prof. Luisa Torsi. She was apostdoctoral fellow at the University of Bari from December2017 to February 2019. Her research activity has been focusedon the development of biosensing platforms based on organicthin-film transistors. She has published 16 papers in interna-tional journals (12 articles and 4 proceeding) and she is thefirst author on 10 of them. She is co-author of a EuropeanPatent (PCT International Application PCT/IB2018/050491).Additionally, she is co-author of three book chapters and sheparticipated in 12 National and International Conferences,with 9 oral contributions and 3 posters. She was awarded fournational and international scientific grants and awards.

Monica Mattarozzi is a researcher at the Department ofChemistry, Life Sciences and Environmental Sustainabilityof the University of Parma, Italy. In 2018, she received theBest Young Researcher award by the Analytical ChemistryDivision of the Italian Chemical Society. Her research inter-ests mainly focus on the development and validation of inno-vative analytical methods based on chromatography, massspectrometry techniques, and biosensing devices. Recent

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research activities include the use of environmental scanningelectron microscopy applied to the characterization of mate-rials and tissues, and to environmental, biological, and foodsamples for analytical purposes.

Björn Meermann is currently working as Junior ResearchGroup Leader (BHabilitand^) in Analytical Chemistry withinthe Department of Aquatic Chemistry at the Federal Instituteof Hydrology (BfG) in Koblenz (Germany), in associationwith the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany). FromJune 1, 2019, he will be Head of the Department ofInorganic Trace Analysis at the Federal Institute of MaterialsResearch and Testing (BAM) in Berlin/Germany. In 2009, hereceived his PhD in analytical chemistry from the Universityof Münster in the group of Uwe Karst. Afterwards, he workedfor almost two years as a postdoctoral researcher with FrankVanhaecke at Ghent University (Belgium). His research inter-ests are focused on method development for the analysis ofnanoparticles (NPs)/single cells by means of AF4/ICP-(SF)MS and single-cell ICP-(ToF)-MS, method developmentfor speciation analysis of chemical elemental species in envi-ronmental samples by means of HPLC, CE on-line with ICP-(SF)MS, application of stable isotopes for tracing and on-lineisotope dilution for quantification of NPs/species, and methoddevelopment for the analysis of non-metals (e.g., fluorine) bymeans of high-resolution continuum source graphite furnacemolecular absorption spectrometry (HR-CS GF MAS).

Márcia Foster Mesko is Associate Professor at the FederalUniversity of Pelotas (UFPel), Brazil (since 2009). Currently,she is Director of the Analytical Chemistry Division of theBrazilian Chemical Society; Coordinator of the ChemistryCommittee at the Foundation for Supporting Research ofRio Grande do Sul state, Brazil (FAPERGS); andCoordinator of the Biochemistry and BioprospectingPostgraduate Program at UFPel. She has received several na-tional and international awards, including one from L’OrealBrazil (Young Woman in Science, Brazilian Academy ofScience, UNESCO). She was recognized as YoungAnalytical Scientist, in the special edition of the Journal ofAnalytical Atomic Spectrometry, 2017, and participated inthe special edition Celebrating Excellence in Research: 100Women of Chemistry, from the Royal Society of Chemistry(RSC). Recently, she was awarded a JAAS EmergingInvestigator Lectureship from the Journal of AnalyticalAtomic Spectrometry (RSC) and asked by IUPAC to representone of the elements of the Periodic Table of Younger Chemists(Bromine) for the celebration of 100 years of IUPAC and theInternational Year of the Periodic Table. She has supervised 11Master’s and 3 PhD students, and published 90 peer-reviewedinternational papers. She has experience in the development ofmethods, especially for halogen determination, using atomicspectrometry and chromatography techniques.

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Markus R. Meyer is Full Professor of Pharmacology andToxicology at the Faculty of Medicine and at the Faculty ofNatural Sciences and Technology, Saarland University(Germany). He is also Head of the Department ofExperimental and Clinical Toxicology of SaarlandUniversity. He has received several international awards forhis scientific work, such as the TIAFT Mid-CareerAchievement Award, the IATDMCT Victor ArmstrongYoung Investigator Award, and the GTFCh Young Scientistsaward. His research is focused on applied mass spectrometryin the field of analytical pharmacology and toxicology.

Elisa Michelini is Associate Professor in AnalyticalChemistry at the Department of Chemistry BGiacomoCiamician^ of the University of Bologna. Her scientific activ-ity is mainly focused on the development of bioanalyticalmethods, including bioluminescent whole-cell biosensorswith applications in drug screening, environmental monitor-ing, forensics, and diagnostics. She is an author and co-authorof over 75 scientific publications and recipient of the MarleneDe Luca Prize (2012) and Genelux Award (2014).

Rebeca Miranda-Castro is Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Physical and Analytical Chemistry at theUniversidad de Oviedo (Spain). She spent a postdoctoral pe-riod in the Laboratoire d’Electrochimie Moléculaire at theUniversité Paris-Diderot (France), working under the supervi-sion of Dr. Limoges on the electrochemical study of enzymat-ic mechanisms for homogeneous and immobilized redox en-zymes. Her current research interests focus on the develop-ment of electrochemical biosensing platforms for clinical di-agnosis and food analysis using molecular recognition ele-ments based on nucleic acids (genosensors and aptasensors).

Peter Nemes is Associate Professor in the Department ofChemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Maryland,College Park. His laboratory develops next-generation micro-analytical mass spectrometry technologies to detect importantproteins, peptides, and metabolites during early embryonicdevelopment and formation of the nervous system.

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Kevin Pagel is Associate Professor at the Freie UniversitätBerlin and guest researcher at the Fritz Haber Institute. Thecentral topic of his research is the structural analysis of bio-logical macromolecules and their complexes using gas-phasetechniques, in particular, glycans and glycoconjugates.

Andrew Patterson is Associate Professor of MolecularToxicology at the Pennsylvania State University, UniversityPark, PA, and Scientific Director of Metabolomics. He andhis students, postdocs, and collaborators focus on understand-ing the host-metabolite–microbiota communication network,specifically how the manipulation of gut microbiota by dietand/or xenobiotics impacts on host metabolites (e.g., bileacids, short-chain fatty acids), their metabolism, and howthese co-metabolites interact with host nuclear/soluble recep-tors (e.g., farnesoid X receptor, aryl hydrocarbon receptor).His lab employs a variety of tools, including NMR and massspectrometry based metabolomics, genomics, and conven-tional and gnotobiotic transgenic mice, to facilitate the studyof these pathways and understand their impact on humanhealth and disease.

Johnny Perez is a research chemist working for the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture-Agricultural ResearchService in Wyndmoor, PA, on food safety. He has been work-ing for a couple of years on antibiotic-resistant microorgan-isms and their link to chemical residues using mass spectrom-etry. His recent work has focused on exploring the organism’sproteome targeting and validating proteotypic biomarkers forrapid detection.

Ásta H. Pétursdóttir is a research scientist and project leaderat Matís, Iceland. She has received numerous prizes, awardsand scholarships including SORSAS award (2010) and twoRSC awards, the Allan Ure Memorial Bursary (2013) and theThermo-Hilger award (2018), both awarded for major contri-bution to analytical atomic spectroscopy. Her research hasfocused on arsenic speciation with an emphasis on seaweed.

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Susy Piovesana has been Research Fellow in the Departmentof Chemistry at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy,since 2017. She is part of the group of Prof. Aldo Laganà andher research interests include the development of analyticalmethods in the fields of proteomics; small-molecule analysisin environmental and food matrices; and, much more recently,metabolomics, and lipidomics. She is co-author of 57 publi-cations and was awarded the Young Researcher Awards inAnalytical Chemistry and Bioanalytical Chemistry by theItalian Chemical Society in 2017 and the Genzo ShimadzuBest Oral Award in 2016.

Alessandro Porchetta is Senior Researcher at the ChemistryDepartment of the University of Rome, Tor Vergata. His re-search activities explore the possibility of using DNA-basednanodevices for diagnostic and drug-monitoring applications.He received the Primo Levi Award (2014) from the ItalianSociety of Chemistry (SCI) and was a recent recipient of theEuropean Young Chemist Award (2018).

Jessica E. Prenni is Associate Professor in the Department ofHorticulture at Colorado State University. She also served asDirector of the CSU Proteomics and Metabolomics Facilityfrom 2007 to 2018. She has over 16 years’ of experience inbiological mass spectrometry and her research is currentlyfocused on the application of mass spectrometry approachesto address important questions in food quality and safety.

Stefania Rapino is a young associate professor in theDepartment of Chemistry BGiacomo Ciamician^ at theUniversity of Bologna. She received her PhD in chemistryin 2006. Her research is mainly focused on the developmentof electrochemical and microstructuring tools for applicationsin life sciences and cancer research. She is a recognized re-searcher in the field of scanning electrochemical microscopyapplied to biomedical research. She was mentioned in 2011 bythe Women and Technologies Association as one of the bestyoung innovative female scientists in the field of bio- andnanotechnologies. She was awarded with research grants asa young scientist by the Italian Ministry of Health and theItalian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC).

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Emma Schymanski is Associate Professor and Head of theEnvironmental Cheminformatics group at the LuxembourgCentre for Systems Biomedic ine , Univers i ty ofLuxembourg, and a Luxembourg National Research Fund(FNR) ATTRACT Fellowship awardee. Her research com-bines open science, cheminformatics, and computational massspectrometry approaches to elucidate the unknowns in com-plex samples and relate these to environmental causes of dis-ease, along with supporting several European and worldwideactivities to improve the exchange of data, information, andideas between scientists.

Michael Seidel is Head of the Bioanalytics andMicroanalyticalSystems group at the Institute of Hydrochemistry and Chair ofAnalytical Chemistry and Water Chemistry, TechnicalUniversity of Munich, Germany. His research interests are with-in bioanalytical methods for environmental and food analyticalchemistry. His expertise is in rapid detection methods; chemilu-minescence microarrays; surface chemistry; selective concentra-tion methods for bioanalytics; detection of pathogens, toxins,and micropollutants; molecular biological methods; andimmunoassays.

Pablo Sinues is Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at theUniversity of Basel (Department of Biomedical Engineering)and his research group is established at the UniversityChildren’s Hospital Basel. His research focuses on the devel-opment of novel instrumentation for real-time analysis of tracegases, with a focus on breath metabolomics for clinical diag-nosis and therapeutic drug monitoring. He was the recipient ofan Eccellenza grant from the Swiss National ScienceFoundation in 2018.

Bradley B. Stocks is Research Officer in Organic ChemicalMetrology at the National Research Council Canada. He re-ceived his PhD from the University of Western Ontario underthe supervision of Lars Konermann, and completed a postdoc-toral fellowship at Northeastern University and an NSERCvisiting fellowship at Health Canada. His current research isfocused on structural characterization and quantitation of pep-tides and proteins with mass spectrometry, and the develop-ment of protein reference materials.

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Christophe Stove is Associate Professor at the Department ofBioanalysis at Ghent University (Belgium). After a cell andmolecular biology oriented PhD and postdoc, he embarkedupon bioanalysis in 2007 and became Head of theLaboratory of Toxicology at the Faculty of PharmaceuticalSciences in 2014. Besides teaching several courses, he directsthe Lab’s service activities (forensic toxicology and referencelab activities (Ref4U)) and steers the research. The lattercovers applied cell biology, as well as bioanalysis, with topicslinked to the development of bioassays as an alternative drug-screening approach in forensic toxicology, to vitamer analysis,or to microsampling applications and associated challenges.

Marek Tobiszewski works in the Department of AnalyticalChemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk University ofTechnology. He is the author of more than 50 scientific papers,published in JCR list journals. He was awarded with the JanUphagen prize for outstanding young scientists in 2013 andthe prize for the best habilitation given by the Committee ofAnalytical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in2017. His scientific interests include the determination of or-ganic compounds in environmental samples, green chemistry,and the application of chemometric and multicriteria decisionanalysis techniques in the optimization of chemical processes.

Giovanni Valenti is a young assistant professor (fixed-term) inthe Department of Chemistry BG. Ciamician^ at the Universityof Bologna. He received his PhD in chemistry from theUniversity of Bologna in 2010. His research is mainly focusedon the fields of electrochemistry and electrochemiluminescence(ECL), also spatially resolved ECL microscopy, for biosensorapplication. He was a visiting researcher at the University ofTexas at Austin andDublin City University, and he has receivedseveral awards, including the BPremio Levi^ awards by theItalian Chemical Society for the best publication, from a youngresearcher, in 2016.

Stijn J. M. Van Malderen is a postdoctoral researcher,working at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron(DESY), and he is associated with Ghent University as partof the X-ray Microspectroscopy and Imaging and Atomicand Mass Spectrometry research units. His work has fo-cused on developing and improving hardware and softwarefor LA-ICP-MS (spatial deconvolution, ablation cells de-sign, and commercial products ARIS, COBALT, HDIP).He is currently developing online data analysis softwarefor synchrotron-based X-ray analysis.

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Ying Wan is Associate Professor in the Bio-Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (Bio-MEMS) Team at the Laboratory ofIntelligence Microsystem in Nanjing University of Scienceand Technology, in Nanjing, China. She has published morethan 30 scientific papers (H index: 15). Her research interestsare in development of biosensors (electrochemical, electrolu-minescent, and surface acoustic wave biosensors) for the anal-ysis of cancer biomarkers (DNA, protein, ncRNA, circulatingtumor cells, etc.)

Caroline West is Associate Professor at the University ofOrleans, France. Her works are essentially devoted to improv-ing the understanding of chromatographic separations in liq-uid and supercritical fluids, to facilitate method development.She received the Emerging Leader in Chromatography awardfrom LC-GC in 2015 and was recognized twice in the Top 40under 40 list by The Analytical Scientist (2014 & 2018). Sheis also a junior member of the French University Institute, aservice of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research,distinguishing a small number of university professors forexcellent research.

NongnootWongkaew is Assistant Professor at the Institute ofAnalytical Chemistry, Chemo- and Biosensors, University ofRegensburg, Germany. She was a postdoctoral fellow of theAlexander von Humboldt Foundation under the supervisionof Prof. Antje J. Baeumner from 2014 to 2016, and is currentlyleading the nanofiber research group at the institute. Her re-search focuses on developing and implementing electrospunnanofibers as a smart 3D nanointerface in miniaturized ana-lytical systems for applications towards point-of-care diagnos-tics and biomedical fields.

Peng Wu is Professor of Analytical Chemistry at SichuanUniversity. He obtained his PhD in chemistry from NankaiUniversity in 2011. He was a recipient of the ChineseNational Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars ofChina in 2015. His current research interests focus on thedevelopment of new optosensing and bioanalytical methodsfor disease-related biomolecules/pathogens based on photo-sensitization and room-temperature phosphorescence.

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Fan Xia obtained his PhD degree from the Institute ofChemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, in 2008,under the direction Professor Lei Jiang. He then went to theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, for his postdoctoraltraining in Professor Alan J. Heeger’s group. In 2012, hereturned to China and took a position as Professor atHuazhong University of Science and Technology. In 2016,he joined the Faculty of Materials Science and Chemistry,China University of Geosciences, China, as Dean andProfessor. His main research interests are focused onbioanalytical chemistry.

YuXia is Professor in the Department of Chemistry, TsinghuaUniversity, Beijing, China. Her research aims broadly to de-veloping mass spectrometry methods and instrumentation forbioanalysis. Her recent research efforts emphasize utilizingradical reactions to resolve structural isomers of biomolecules,such as lipid double-bond location isomers. She received aResearch Award (2013) from the American Society for MassSpectrometry and an Excellent Young Scientists Fund (2017)from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Lehui Xiao is now Professor of Chemistry at the College ofChemistry of Nankai University, China. His lab applies anddevelops optical microscopic methods to explore problems inanalytical chemistry, biomedicine, and nanoscience. One ofthe main focus areas is to understand those vital biologicalprocesses with functionalized nanomaterials in living cell withhigh spatial and temporal resolution. Meanwhile, he is alsointerested in the exploration of fundamental photophysicalproperties of novel functional nanomaterials and their poten-tial applications in analytical chemistry for ultrasensitivedetection.

Min Xue is Assistant Professor in the Department ofChemistry at the University of California, Riverside. Hisgroup is interested in developing fluorescent probes that en-able novel bioanalytical methods, especially at single-cell res-olution. Specific research projects include the implementchemical methods for single-cell metabolic assays that canbe integrated to single-cell proteomic/transcriptomic plat-forms, the use of peptide-based probes to dynamically monitorintracellular signaling activities, and the construction of topo-logically complex multicyclic peptides for specific recogni-tion of protein epitopes and small molecules.

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Yi-Lun Ying is Associate Professor of Analytical Chemistryat the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at EastChina University of Science and Technology. As an active andemerging investigator in analytical chemistry, she has receivedsix awards and honors, including the L’Oreal-UNESCOInternational Rising Talents (2016) and RSC AnalystEmerging Investigator (2018). Her research interests focuson nano-spectroelectrochemistry to reveal the heterogeneousstructure–activity relationship of single molecules that in-volves nanopores and nanoelectrodes.

Wataru Yoshida is Senior Assistant Professor at the Schoolof Bioscience and Biotechnology, Graduate School ofBionics, Tokyo University of Technology. In 2008, he re-ceived his doctorate in engineering from the TokyoUniversity of Agriculture and Technology. He was honoredwith the Elsevier Biosensors and Bioelectronics Award 2008(1st runner-up) during the 18th Anniversary World Congresson Biosensors. His research group is interested in biomolecu-lar engineering to develop biosensing technologies for epige-netic modifications, such as CpG methylation and histonemodifications in human genomic DNA.

Zheng-Jiang Zhu is Professor and leader of theMetabolomicsResearch Group in Interdisciplinary Research Center onBiology and Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of OrganicChemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.His research focuses on mass spectrometry based metabolo-mics, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, and metabolic regula-tion in disease. He has published 50 peer-reviewed papers inprestigious journals with over 3000 citations.

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Yong-Liang Yu has been Professor in Analytical Chemistry,in the Department of Chemistry, Northeastern University,since 2015. He was supported by the Program of NewCentury Excellent Talents in University in 2013. His currentresearch focuses on sample pretreatment, spectroscopic anal-ysis, and the development of biosensors.

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