Self-assembly of designer biosurfactants

This contribution reports on some recent advances in the field of self-assembly of biologically inspired amphiphiles, focusing on nucleolipids. Due to their important potential for biomedical applications, the synthesis of this class of compounds can be considered a mature field, but precise relationships between molecular level details and self-assembly properties still have to be elucidated in detail. This review will present the most recent progresses in the field, along with the new possibilities opened up by DNA nanobiotechnology, where the hydrophobic functionalization is meant as a tether for incorporation in soft matrices, such as planar or free standing lipid bilayers.