It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Saint Etienne to join us at the 17th International Symposium on Biomineralization (BIOMIN XVII). Since 1970, year of the first symposium on biomineralization organized in Germany, the biomineralization community has been making great advances in different aspects of biomineralization, including the hierarchical structures of biominerals and their development, the important genes and functional proteins of biomineralization, the mechanisms of biomineralization in living systems and biomimetic mineralization, the discovery of non-classical crystallization pathways, and the fabrication of advanced functional materials inspired by biomineralization. The knowledge gained in biomineralization has been applied in hard tissue repair, pharmaceutical, agricultural, energy and environmental sciences, paleontology, and materials-assisted artificial life systems. Biomineralization becomes an important resource for developing new structured materials and solving health-care problems. We believe that we are standing on the historic stage to link the fundamental studies of biomineralization to the challenging global problems. This biannual conference has been organized in many countries in the world, but only once in a French speaking place, Monaco in 1993. It is time to organize it in France. Due to the pandemic the BIOMIN XVI edition has been organized virtually by our Chinese colleagues in august 2021. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to Saint Etienne to have the opportunity to meet face-to-face again