The conference “IMA 09, Instrumental Methods of Analysis: Modern Trends and Applications, was held on 4– 8 October 2009 in Athens, Greece, an excellent combination of modern life and many important archaeological sites, for example the Acropolis, Agora, Cape Sounion, and others. IMA 09 was the sixth conference in this series started in 1999 in Chalkidiki, Greece, under the Chairmanship of M. Ochsenkuhn-Petropoulou; since then there has been a continuation every two years organized each time by another academic Greek analytical chemistry laboratory. IMA 09 was organized with the cooperation of the two oldest and largest Greek academic analytical chemistry laboratories both situated in Athens, those of the Kapodistrian University and the National Technical University of Athens. Co-organizers were the other Greek academic analytical chemistry laboratories, which had been responsible for the former IMA Conferences. The conference was opened by C. Mountzouris, Rector of the National Technical University of Athens. Fields such as novel analytical instrumentation, lab-on-achip system for nanoanalysis, sensors for biological and chemical systems, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, process analysis, speciation and environmental analysis, clinical and biomedical analysis, for example discovery, quality assurance in the pharmaceutical industry, metabolic profiling of drugs, and new trends in chromatography, electroanalysis, spectroscopy, and FIA analysis, and interesting applications in these areas, were presented during this five-day conference. The scientific framework consisted of eight sessions, six of which were held parallel. Sessions were introduced by plenary lectures given by well-known, invited scientists from all over the world, experienced in the respective fields. The sessions were chaired by experts in instrumental methods of analysis, as follows: