Recent advances in the design and construction of synthetic peptides: for the love of basics or just for the technology of it.

Advances in the methods used for the chemical synthesis of peptides, and in the accumulation and analysis of numerous X-ray crystallographic and nuclear magnetic resonance protein and peptide structures, have enabled the design and construction of peptides for investigating basic folding principles, making novel structural motifs, modifying functional activities, developing pharmaceutical drugs and creating new biomaterials. The focus of this review is on recent trends in the design and construction of synthetic peptides for basic science and for various biotechnological applications.