  Global symmetries and symmetry breaking patterns of QCD with light quarks, in
particular chiral symmetry, provide basic guidance not only for low-energy
hadron physics but also for nuclear forces and the nuclear many-body problem.
Recent developments of Chiral Effective Field Theory applications to nuclear
and neutron matter are summarized, with special emphasis on a
(non-perturbative) extension using functional renormalisation group methods.
Topics include: nuclear thermodynamics, extrapolations to dense baryonic matter
and constraints from neutron star observables.
