Cover: Nature provides an inexhaustible source of inspiration for chemists and engineers to create highly sophisticated functional materials. This special issue highlights the major topics of the symposium on bioinspired materials held in Strasbourg (France) in 2006. The gecko image on the cover is reprinted from “Evidence for van der Waals adhesion in gecko setae” by Autumn, K., M. Sitti, A. Peattie, W. Hansen, S. Sponberg, Y. A. Liang, T. Kenny, R. Fearing, J. Israelachvili, and R. J. Full (2002, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99:12252-12256), courtesy of Prof. Kellar Autumn (Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon). BASF - ISIS is gratefully acknowledged for providing the nanofoam images.