Polymerized Vesicles and Lipid Bilayers

Major barriers to the use of conventional vesicles in many applications include (1) the inherent long-term instability of the systems, (2) their potential for interaction with enzymes and blood lipoproteins, and (3) their susceptibility to the actions of other surface-active materials. For such critical applications as controlled-release drug delivery, even the most stable systems with a lifetime of several months do not begin to approach the shelf life requirements. 

As a result of the potential utility and relatively low cost of vesicles, a great deal of effort has in been applied to the development of polymerized surfactant and phospholipid systems. The ability to crosslink the vesicle membrane after the encapsulation process should produce a system in which the basic nature of 

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