Biotechnological Applications of Model Membranes and Phospholipid Polymers

Abstract

The realization of the enormous prospects of molecular biology as applied to a variety of industrial, agricultural and medical problems, has given rise in recent years to a new branch of knowledge, called biotechnology. Biotechnology encompasses the most lively areas of biological research, including genetic engineering, molecular immunology, membrane biophysics, etc., together with other long established fields, such as fermentation technology, in order to solve important problems in research and development. Biotechnology, therefore, includes every industrial and technological application of biology. In this chapter, we shall comment how membrane biology has become relevant in the technological context. For this purpose, we shall first review some important aspects of the structure and properties of model and cell membranes, then comment on a new type of polymerizable phospholipids of biotechnological interest, finally discuss some of the practical applications of membrane studies.