Control of Ionic and Molecular Transport Through Artificial Lipid Membranes Containing Photopolymerizable Lipids with Applicability to Drug Delivery

The ability to precisely control delivery of a drug exclusively to a diseased site is crucial for any chemotherapy for which the therapeutic agent is characterized by a high toxicity to healthy cells and tissues. In this line, current approaches include drug encapsulation into liposomes capable of evading the immune system, protecting their payload, and self-accumulation into tumors. However, this approach suffers from the inability to control the release of the drug, which in turn limits its efficacy. To alleviate this problem, we propose using photopolymerizable lipids to control the permeability of artificial bilayer lipid membranes upon UV-induced activation