BrJAC mourns the death of Prof. Dr. Miguel Valcárcel Cases and recognizes his great contribution to Analytical Chemistry and Science around the World

Who has not seen or heard about books such as Analytical Chemistry: A Modern Approach to Analytical Science, Principles of Analytical Chemistry: A Textbook, or Foundations of Analytical Chemistry: A Teaching-Learning Approach, or about flow injection analysis-FIA, and sequential injection analysis-SIA? These are, in fact, some contributions from Prof. Miguel Valcárcel Cases, at the University of Córdoba-Spain, who leave us on 9th January 2022 at the age of 75. Prof. Valcárcel was Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Córdoba, Vice-Rector for academic guidance and teaching and Vice-Rector for quality, as well as the first Director of the Andalusian Institute of Fine Chemistry and Nanochemistry since 1994. Born in Barcelona (Spain), Prof. Valcárcel was a graduate of the University of Seville where also obtained his Ph.D., and was an assistant teacher until 1975. He was an associate professor of Analytical Chemistry at the Faculty of Science of Palma de Mallorca in 1975, an institution where he was also Dean and full professor at the University of Cordoba in the year 1976. He was also President of the Analytical Division of the European Federation of Chemical Societies and was a member for 4 years of the High-Level Expert Group of the European Union's Growth Program. Valcárcel received the Spanish national Enrique Moles prize for Chemical Science and Technology (2005), the Maimónides prize for scientific-technical research from the Junta de Andalucia (1992), and the Solvay Research Prize in Chemical Sciences from the CEOE Foundation (1997). He has the Robert Boyle Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK, 2004), the Enrich Planquette Prize from the Austrian Chemical Society (1996), the Gold Medal from the University of Warsaw (2000), and the Medal from the Portuguese Chemical Society (2000). He also received the distinction of Cordoba citizen of the year 2006 in the education/research section, and the Averroes de Oro-Cuidad de Córdoba medal in 2006 for his scientific trajectory. He was also awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Valencia (2010) and the European DAC-EuChMS (Division of Analytical Chemistry of the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences) award in recognition of his scientific and teaching career (2015). He was the author of ca. 700 papers, published 9 scientific books, and co-authored 15 chapters of multi-author books. Owner of a unique vitality and a very accurate vision of Analytical Chemistry, Prof. Valcárcel contributed to the formation of dozens of students, of which he was extremely proud, and some of them are today Full professors spread all over the world. The Brazilian Journal of Analytical Chemistry mourns his death, and through this simple tribute, recognizes his great contribution to Analytical Chemistry and science around the world.

Sequestration of Plant Defense Compounds by Insects: From Mechanisms to Insect–Plant Coevolution

Plant defense compounds play a key role in the evolution of insect–plant associations by selecting for behavioral, morphological, and physiological insect adaptations. Sequestration, the ability of herbivorous insects to accumulate plant defense compounds to gain a fitness advantage, represents a complex syndrome of adaptations that has evolved in all major lineages of herbivorous insects and involves various classes of plant defense compounds. In this article, we review progress in understanding how insects selectively accumulate plant defense metabolites and how the evolution of specific resistance mechanisms to these defense compounds enables sequestration. These mechanistic considerations are further integrated into the concept of insect–plant coevolution. Comparative genome and transcriptome analyses, combined with approaches based on analytical chemistry that are centered in phylogenetic frameworks, will help to reveal adaptations underlying the sequestration syndrome, which is essential to understanding the influence of sequestration on insect–plant coevolution.