  We present a novel description of nuclear many-body systems, both for nuclear
matter and finite nuclei, emphasizing the connection with the condensate
structure of the QCD ground state and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking.
Lorentz scalar and vector mean-fields are introduced in accordance with QCD sum
rules. Nuclear binding arises from pionic fluctuations, using in-medium chiral
perturbation theory up to three-loop order. Ground state properties of $^{16}$O
and $^{40}$Ca are calculated. The built-in QCD constraints reduce the number of
input parameters significantly in comparison with purely phenomenological
relativistic mean-field approaches.

Nuclear Theory