Advanced synthetic materials in detection science In a bid to develop synthetic molecules and materials that are capable of mimicking biological recognition and function intensive research in the fields of synthetic receptor technologies smart materials synthetic biology and smart indicators has been under way for the past 20 30 years. The development of synthetic receptors continues to grow rapidly. Novel molecular architectures with ever improving selective binding properties are constantly being described and in some cases providing much needed physical insights into the nature of non covalent interactions and molecular recognition. S