Recent progress in sample extraction: A report on the ExTech 2007 Symposium at Ålesund, Norway, 3–6 June 2007

Professor Janusz Pawliszyn (University of Waterloo, Canada) initiated ExTech, the International Symposium on Advances in Extraction Technologies, in 1999, when the primary focus of the meeting was to discuss classical extraction methods and some of the applications taking place of the solid-phase microextraction (SPME) technique. Due to the success of this initial meeting and the number of novel extraction methods continually being developed, symposia have been held annually throughout the world and include: Waterloo (2000, organized by Prof. Pawliszyn), Barcelona, Spain, (2001, Prof. Josep M. Bayona), Paris, France (2002, Prof. Marie-Claire Hennion), Florida, USA, (2003, Prof. Abdul Malik), Leipzig, Germany, (2004, Prof. Peter Popp), Campinas, Brazil, (2005, Prof. Fabio Augusto) and York, United Kingdom (2006, Dr. Robert Smits).