The year of 2020 was a tumultuous one for almost everyone on the globe, but with a number of vaccines to protect us against SARS-Cov-2 infections beginning to be administered in some parts of the world, many of us welcomed the new year with much more hope for a brighter future than we had for most of 2020. With the vaccines rolling out, and our need to be able to monitor the response of individuals to a vaccine, 2021 promises also to be another huge year for sensing. The antibody-based sensing systems will really come to the fore for this application as well as the nucleic acid-based sensing systems for direct detection of viral infections. Last year also saw some significant changes to the journal. Our inaugural Managing Editor Nella Mazur, who also proposed the idea of the journal to the ACS, continued her meteoric rise in publishing and was promoted to Assistant Director and Publisher. Nicole Camasso then joined as our new Managing Editor, and new Associate Editors Roya Maboudian, Jean-François “JF” Masson, and Andrew deMello were added to the Editorial Board. The other significant change was Meng Li joining as a Development Editor, which means absolutely every manuscript passes before at least 2 pairs of scientific eyes. And of course, our impact factor made it over 7, being 7.333. One point of particular interest this year, as in all years for all journals, is what will the next impact factor be? This is a particularly hard question to answer this coming year as Clarivate has changed how impact factors will be calculated. For a long time, an article was considered a “citable item” when all of the citation information was available—that is typically page numbers were available—as would be the case when the publication world was dominated by printed issues. Starting this year, Clarivate will now recognize the electronic publication date in its calculations to be more in line with the modern world of electronic publishing. This change will eliminate the unfair advantage some journals get by leaving papers in advanced release for a long time or by publishing issues with dates months in advance of the actual date the issue is released. While the change will be completely implemented in 2022, this year will be a transition year in which some journals will experience inflated impact factors. During this transition period, citations from early releases will be counted in the numerator of the impact factor but will be excluded from the publication count (i.e., the denominator), thereby causing this inflationary effect. As the journal starts its sixth year, what do we have in store apart from our usual monthly issues? This year we will publish at least 3 virtual issues on already published papers with the goal of celebrating the geographic diversity of the authorship of ACS Sensors. There will be one virtual issue on the Asia-Pacific region, one on Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and one on the Americas. Along the theme of reaching out to parts of the globe, Associate Editor Roya Maboudian will speak as part of the ACS India Science Talk series on her own research. 2021 will also be the last year we host our ACS Measurement Science Lectureship Awards at Pittcon. Later this year, we will also have our 2021 winners speak at a virtual conference run by the ACS with 1 day of talks dedicated to each of the ACS measurement science journals and 1 day to the award winners. Starting in 2022, this Measurement Science Forum will be the home of the awards. Finally, we are hoping to streamline the article types a little by eliminating the Sensor Issues and Introducing our Authors article categories. We really hope that we will be able to engage with as many of you as possible in 2021, although meeting in person seems to be a long way off still. Let us hope that the vaccines not only protect us against infection but also protect a vaccinated person from being infective to others, while providing protection for a long time. It is still a long haul before the vaccines reach across the entire globe. Then, life will improve rapidly and the physical meeting of people from different countries will become more common again. We certainly miss meeting the authors who submit to ACS Sensors and have made the journal what it is today. Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS. This article has not yet been cited by other publications.

中文翻译：

---

2021年：充满希望的一年

2020年对于全球几乎每个人来说都是一个动荡的一年，但是随着世界各地开始使用多种疫苗来保护我们免受SARS-Cov-2感染，我们许多人欢迎新的一年。与2020年大部分时间相比，我们有一个更加光明的未来的希望。随着疫苗的推出，以及我们需要能够监控个人对疫苗的反应的需求，2021年也将是传感技术又一个重要的年份。对于这种应用，基于抗体的传感系统以及直接检测病毒感染的基于核酸的传感系统将真正脱颖而出。去年还对该期刊进行了一些重大更改。我们的第一任执行编辑Nella Mazur也向ACS提出了该杂志的构想，继续她在出版业的飞速发展，并被提升为助理导演和发行人。妮可·卡马索（Nicole Camasso）随后加入，担任新的执行主编，新的副编辑罗亚·马布迪安（Roya Maboudian），让·弗朗索瓦（Jean-François）“马萨诸塞州”（JF）Masson和安德鲁·德梅洛（Andrew deMello）被添加到编辑委员会。另一个重大变化是，李萌（Meng Li）加入了开发编辑部，这意味着每篇手稿绝对都要经过至少两对科学眼才能通过。当然，我们的影响因子超过了7，即7.333。与所有期刊一样，今年特别令人关注的一点是，下一个影响因素是什么？随着Clarivate改变了影响因素的计算方式，这是来年特别难回答的问题。需很长时间，当所有引用信息均可用时（通常是页码可用），则该文章被视为“可引用的项目”，例如在印刷界主导出版物世界的情况下。从今年开始，Clarivate现在将在计算中识别出电子出版日期，使其更符合现代的电子出版世界。此项更改将消除某些期刊获得的不公平优势，因为这些期刊可以长时间长时间保留在高级版本中，或者通过在实际发行日期之前数月发布日期来发行。虽然这一更改将在2022年完全实施，但今年将是过渡年，其中一些期刊将经历夸大的影响因素。在此过渡期间，早期版本的引用将计入影响因子的分子中，但不会计入出版物计数（即分母）中，从而导致这种通货膨胀效应。随着该杂志开始第六年的发展，除了通常的每月刊物外，我们还有什么呢？今年，我们将在已发表的论文上至少发表3个虚拟期刊，以庆祝该期刊作者的地域多样性。ACS传感器。亚太地区将有一个虚拟的问题，欧洲，非洲和中东将有一个虚拟问题，而美洲则是一个虚拟问题。围绕触及全球的主题，副编辑Roya Maboudian将作为ACS印度科学讲座系列的一部分发表自己的研究报告。2021年也将是我们在Pittcon举办ACS测量科学讲座奖的最后一年。今年晚些时候，我们还将让2021年的获奖者在ACS举办的虚拟会议上发表演讲，并针对ACS测量科学期刊的每一个进行为期1天的演讲，对获奖者进行1天的演讲。从2022年开始，这个测量科学论坛将成为奖项的发源地。最后，我们希望通过消除“传感器问题”并介绍“作者”文章类别来稍微简化文章类型。我们真的希望我们能够在2021年与尽可能多的人进行交流，尽管面对面的交流似乎还有很长的路要走。让我们希望，这些疫苗不仅可以保护我们免受感染，还可以保护接种疫苗的人免受他人感染，同时提供长期保护。疫苗在全球范围内传播还很漫长。然后，生活将迅速改善，来自不同国家的人们的见面会再次变得更加普遍。我们当然会错过与提交给 同时提供长时间的保护。疫苗在全球范围内传播还很漫长。然后，生活将迅速改善，来自不同国家的人们的见面会再次变得更加普遍。我们当然会错过与提交给 同时提供长时间的保护。疫苗在全球范围内传播还很漫长。然后，生活将迅速改善，来自不同国家的人们的见面会再次变得更加普遍。我们当然会错过与提交给ACS Sensors并已使该期刊成为今天。本社论中表达的观点只是作者的观点，不一定是ACS的观点。本文尚未被其他出版物引用。