Foldamers can be made more than pieces of static, conformationally uniform molecular architecture by designing into their structure the conformational dynamism characteristic of functional molecular machines. We show that these dynamic foldamers display biomimetic properties reminiscent of allosteric proteins and receptor molecules. They can translate chemical signals into conformational changes, and hence into chemical outputs such as control of reactivity and selectivity. Future developments could see dynamic foldamers operating in the membrane phase providing artificial mechanisms for communication and control that integrate synthetic chemistry into synthetic biology.