Chemical sensing aims at direct/immediate identification and quantitation of chemical species in our environment. The environment should be understood in its broadest sense as ranging from measurements in space to detecting chemical species in our own body. The concept of rapid in-situ measurements, largely enabled by chemical sensors, matches well our future vision of gaining chemical information on site and using them directly in various feedback loops to? diagnose and control processes. Many of the challenges in this field have been addressed by the implementation of custom tailored synthetic receptors and nanostructures. Therefore, after a brief introduction of the chemical sensing field through its most important achievements, the talk with focus on our own results in the area of receptor development and nanosensing.