Annual Reviews represents a family of interlocked publications—complete with graphics, video clips, and tabulations of supplementary data—that cover all of science. Analytical science is an integral part of the infrastructure ofmany branches of experimental science, and since 2008, it has been an explicit part of the Annual Reviews collection in the form of the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry.

This volume is full of exciting and thoughtful contributions ranging from fundamental and applied aspects of medical science to biological and pharmaceutical science, the environment, nanotechnology, and art and archeology—all illuminated by spectroscopy and mass spectrometry and by electrochemistry, microfluidics, and chromatography. The richness and reach of the field of analytical chemistry are evident in the volume and through the Web-based connections to many other volumes, past and current, of Annual Reviews.

One notable contribution to the volume is the personal account of Richard N. Zare of the development of laser-induced fluorescence. This contribution is notable in that it typifies the sequence of developments that lead to successful analytical methods. These include mastery of fundamentals, development of new concepts and the tools to test them, and characterization of the capabilities of the new method, and its dissemination and wide application. This contribution is also noteworthy because Dick Zare’s enthusiasm for analytical chemistry led directly to his suggestion that the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry be created and to his subsequent editorial leadership of the new series. Analytical chemists owe a debt of gratitude to Dick Zare for his insights into and enthusiasm for their discipline and for his service to this area of science through Annual Reviews.

The Editors