This and January, 2019 issues of the “Journal of Analytical Chemistry” include reviews prepared by researchers of the Division of Analytical Chemistry of the Department of Chemistry of Moscow State University. The reviews summarize the results of research and development made at the Division mainly within the last 8–10 years and, in some of the papers, within 10–15 years. The January, 2019 issue will additionally present original papers of researchers and graduate students of the Division. Many earlier works were published in two monographs devoted to the Division and published in 2015 and 2017 [1, 2].

The materials of these two issues of the Journal present the majority of modern fields of research carried out at the Division, but, for different reasons, not all of them.

Thus, a large (though not reflected here) cycle of works was devoted to thermooptical methods of analysis, their development and application. These are studies by the group headed by M.A. Proskurnin. Special attention of this group was paid to thermal lens spectrometry. The results of works in this area are reflected in recent reviews published in the “Journal of Analytical Chemistry” [3, 4]. Research in this area is conducted in collaboration with foreign scientific groups (Japan, United States, Slovenia, etc.) and in cooperation with Russian colleagues. These studies, like many others, are supported by the Russian Science Foundation and other foundations.

Works on methods of pattern recognition without the determination of individual components, so-called “fingerprints” have been recently started. The version of these methods developed at the Division was named “fluorescent tongue” (M.K. Beklemishev) [5]. The works of the Division on biosensors and biochemical methods of analysis in general are also well regarded. The results of these studies are also presented only partially.