Supramolecular chemistry at the interface of biology, materials and medicine

What do art, auto-mechanics, a rural Australian and Chinese village, two civil wars, and house building have to do with supramolecular chemistry? Unless you are an avid cover-tocover reader of the Thematic Series of the Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry and happened upon the issue entitled “Supramolecular chemistry at the interface of biology, materials and medicine”, there is no possible way you would see the connection between these disparate items. In fact, these are part of the childhood recollections of several leading practitioners in the field of supramolecular chemistry and the authors of the mini-reviews in this Thematic Series. Before explaining the purpose of these recollections in more detail, an overview of this Thematic Series is needed.