The word polymer was introduced by Berzelius in
1833. About 100 years later, during the classic period
of polymer science, Wallace Carothers reviewed the
entire field of polymer chemistry including that of
biological polymers and of polymer physics in a single
article in Chemical Reviews (Carothers, W. H. Po￾lymerization. Chem. Rev. 1931, 8, 353). Today, the
field of synthetic and biological polymers is impacting
extensively various areas of chemistry, biochemistry,
molecular biology, nanotechnology, electronics, medi￾cine, life sciences, materials, etc., and is reviewed in
almost every individual and thematic issue of Chemi￾cal Reviews. The present thematic issue is focused
only on a very selected series of subjects in an
attempt to avoid overlap with very recent thematic
issues such as “Nanostructures” (Vol. 99, No. 7, 1999),
“Frontiers in Metal-Catalyzed Polymerization” (Vol.
100, No. 4, 2000), “Chemical Sensors” (Vol. 100, No.
7), and “Protein Design” (Vol. 101, No. 10, 2001).