Abstract: Using liposomes to deliver bioactive agents to cancer or tumor cells and compositions of specific lipids that form liposomes to deliver a biologically active agent.

Abstract: Methods for controlling surface topography and binding reactivity in functionalized lipid layers, including in the form of liposomes, using pH-dependent processes. During direct cell-to-cell communication, lipids on the extracellular side of plasma membranes reorganize, and membrane associated communication-related molecules co-localize. At co-localization sites, sometimes identified as rafts, the local cell surface topography and reactivity are altered. Integration of these processes on nanometer-sized lipid vesicles used as drug delivery carriers would precisely control their interactions with diseased cells minimizing toxicities. Included are pH-dependent processes on functionalized lipid bilayers demonstrating reversible sharp changes in binding reactivity within a narrow pH window. Cholesterol enables tuning of the membrane reorganization to occur at pH values not necessarily close to the reported pKa's of the constituent titratable lipids.