Liposomes are small (100-times smaller than a red blood cell) structures comprising a lipid bilayer surrounding an aqueous core. They were initially developed as a model membrane system that could be used to uncover the functional roles of lipids in membranes as well as facilitating a greater understanding of how membrane proteins interact with lipid bilayers. As such, the usefulness of liposomes as models to study various properties of biological membranes such as trans-membrane transport and membrane permeability was recognized early on. Some ten years later, liposomes proved useful to protect compounds and proteins from degradation. Finally the utility of liposomes to act as nano-scaled delivery systems was explored. Most molecular biologists are familiar with the use of liposomes as reagents to facilitate transfer of plasmid expression vectors, antisense oligonucleotides, siRNA and mRNA into cells. However, one of the research areas that led to development of improved anticancer drugs concerned the use of liposomes as drug delivery vehicles. The dose of many chemotherapeutic agents is limited due to unacceptable toxicities, i.e. the dose required to achieve desired anti-tumour activities is often toxic to normal cells. An elegant solution to this problem would be to provide “targeted” therapy and enhanced selectivity of the anti-cancer drug of interest – liposomes provide such a solution. Due to the leaky nature of tumour associated blood vessels and poor lymphatic drainage the tumour environment facilitates accumulation and retention of drug loaded liposomes. Further, liposomes can be modified to direct the associated drug to cell populations within the tumor. My presentation will focus on liposome technology with the goal of providing some insight into their use for biological applications that have led to an improved understanding of cancer as well as approved therapeutics that are providing significant benefits to patients.