The book reviews the current experimental and theoretical knowledge of the synergism between modern physics, soft condensed matter and biology, presenting a thorough discussion of the relative role of the variousfundamental interactions in such systems: electrostatic, hydrophobic, steric, conformational, van der Waals, etc. These competing interactions influence the form and topology of soft and biological matter, like polymers andproteins, leading to hierarchical structures in self-assembling systems and folding patterns sometimes described in terms of chirality, braids and knots. Finally, the competing interactions influence various bioprocesses likegenetic regulation and biological evolution taking place in systems like biopolymers, macromolecules and cell membranes. The authors include theoretical physicists, soft condensed matter experimentalists, biologicalphysicists, and molecular biologists - all leaders in their respective fields. Aside from the need to gain new, fundamental insights, the subject area is also of great importance for many applications, in that self-assemblyand hierarchical assembly are important features to achieve functionality on multiple length scales. Applications range from the nanoscopic (e.g., biomolecular material and copolymeric mesophases) to the microscopic (allorganic microelectronics) to the macroscopic (high-performance structural composites).