Bioinspired polymer vesicles and membranes for biological and medical applications

Biological membranes play an essential role in living organisms by providing stable and functional compartments, preserving cell architecture, whilst supporting signalling and selective transport that are mediated by a variety of proteins embedded in the membrane. However, mimicking cell membranes - to be applied in artificial systems - is very challenging because of the vast complexity of biological structures. In this respect a highly promising strategy to designing multifunctional hybrid materials/systems is to combine biological molecules with polymer membranes or to design membranes with intrinsic stimuli-responsive properties. Here we present supramolecular polymer assemblies resulting from self-assembly…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• RS
  Royal Society
• RS
  Royal Society of Chemistry
• SN
  Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
• SN
  Swiss Nanoscience Institute