Self-assembled vesicles with functionalized membranes.

Biological membranes play a key role for the function of living organisms. Thus, many artificial systems have been designed to mimic natural cell membranes and their functions. A useful concept for the preparation of functional membranes is the embedding of synthetic amphiphiles into vesicular bilayers. The dynamic nature of such noncovalent assemblies allows the rapid and simple development of bio-inspired responsive nanomaterials, which find applications in molecular recognition, sensing or catalysis. However, the complexity that can be achieved in artificial functionalized membranes is still rather limited and the control of their dynamic properties and the analysis of membrane structures down to the molecular level remain challenging.