Artificial membranes with complex topography aid the understanding of biological processes where membrane geometry plays a key regulatory role. In this review, we highlight how emerging material and engineering technologies have been employed to create minimal models of cell signaling pathways, in vitro. These artificial systems allow life scientists to answer ever more challenging questions with regards to mechanisms in cellular biology. In vitro reconstitution of biology is an area that draws on the expertise and collaboration between biophysicists, material scientists and biologists and has recently generated a number of high impact results, some of which are also discussed in this review.
Keywords: Solid-supported lipid bilayers; in vitro reconstitution; membrane curvature; membrane patterning; synthetic biology.