Advances in Biomembranes and Lipid Self-Assembly

The Elsevier book series Advances in Biomembranes and Lipid Self-Assembly (previously titled Advances in Planar Lipid Bilayers and Liposomes), provides a global platform for a broad community of experimental and theoretical researchers studying cell membranes, lipid model membranes, and lipid self-assemblies from the micro- to the nanoscale. Planar lipid bilayers are widely studied due to their ubiquity in nature and find their application in the formulation of biomimetic model membranes and in the design of artificial dispersion of liposomes.

Moreover, lipids self-assemble into a wide range of other structures including micelles and the liquid crystalline hexagonal and cubic phases. Consensus has been reached that curved membrane phases do play an important role in nature as well, especially in dynamic processes such as vesicles fusion and cell communication. Self-assembled lipid structures have enormous potential as dynamic materials ranging from artificial lipid membranes to cell membranes, from biosensing to controlled drug delivery, from pharmaceutical formulations to novel food products to mention a few. An assortment of chapters in this volume represents both original research as well as comprehensive reviews written by world leading experts and young researchers.

Surveys recent theoretical and experimental results on lipid micro- and nanostructuresPresents potential uses of applications like clinically relevant diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, biotechnology, pharmaceutical engineering, and food productsProvides both original research as well as comprehensive reviews written by world leading experts and young researchersProvides a global platform for a broad community of experimental and theoretical researchers studying cell membranes, lipid model membranes, and lipid self-assemblies from the micro- to the nanoscale.

1. The Importance of Planarity for Lipid Bilayers as Biomembranes Kazutami Sakamoto 2. Interaction of Cells and Platelets with Biomaterial Surfaces Treated with Gaseous Plasma Ita Junkar 3. Competition Between Electrostatic and Thermodynamic Casimir Potentials in Near-Critical Mixtures with Ions Alina Ciach 4. Effect of Selected Dendrimers and Dendriplexes on Model Lipid Membranes Maksim Ionov, Tibor Hianik and Maria Bryszewska 5. The Membrane Bending Modulus in Experiments and Simulations: A Puzzling Picture Davide Bochicchio and Luca Monticelli 6. Bicontinuous Phases of Lyotropic Liquid Crystals Wojciech Góźdź 7. Peculiarities in the Study of Pre-formed DSPC Lipid Vesicles by Coarse Grain Molecular Dynamics Hassan Chamati, Roman Trobec and Janez I. Pavlič 8. Extracellular Vesicles in Cancer Nami Yamada and Yukihiro Akao