Non-natural folded polymers (foldamers) display considerable versatility, and the
design of such molecules is of great current interest. In this respect, peptidic foldamers
are perhaps the best-characterized systems, as they populate a number of residue-controlled
secondary structures, which have found various biological applications and have also
led to the creation of nanostructured materials. This critical review covers recent
developments related to diverse building blocks and modern foldamer design principles,
such as the stereochemical patterning methods. The recent achievements concerning
tertiary/quaternary structures and the self-assembling foldameric nanostructures are
also addressed (176 references).