Self-assembled lipid bilayers as a smart material for nanotechnology

Biomembranes play a central role in signal transduction and information processing. This is due to the fact that most physiological activities involve some kind of lipid bilayer-based receptor-ligand contact interactions. There are many outstanding examples, such as ion sensing, antigen-antibody binding and ligand-gated channels. Our approach to studying these interactions in vitro is facilitated by using self-assembled bilayer lipid membranes (s-BLMs). We have focused our efforts on ion and/or molecular selectivity and specificity using recently available s-BLMs, whose enhanced stability greatly aids in research areas of membrane biochemistry, biophysics and cell biology as well as in biosensor design and molecular device development.