Antimicrobial resistance is an emerging global health crisis. Consequently, we have a critical need to prolong our current arsenal of antibiotics, in addition to the development of novel treatment options.

The complex composition of bacterial membranes has a significant impact on the understanding of pathogen function and their development towards antibiotic resistance. In addition to the inherent complexity and biosafety risks of studying biological pathogen membranes, the continual rise of antibiotic resistance and its significant economical and clinical consequences has motivated the development of numerous in vitro model membrane systems with tuneable compositions, geometries, and sizes. Approaches discussed in this review include liposomes, solid-supported bilayers, and computational simulations which have been used to explore various processes including drug-membrane interactions, lipid-protein interactions, host–pathogen interactions, and structure-induced bacterial pathogenesis. The advantages, limitations, and applicable analytical tools of all architectures are summarised with a perspective for future research efforts in architectural improvement and elucidation of resistance development strategies and membrane-targeting antibiotic mechanisms.

A facile, expeditious, and green method has been developed to fabricate cupric phosphate nanosheets, nanoflowers, nanoscrolls, and nanopetals using a vortex fluidic device (VFD), which possesses a rapidly rotating quartz tube tilted at ±45°. The changing state and dimensions of the nanostructures can be precisely controlled by varying the rotational speed of the angled quartz tube, processing time, pH, temperature, and the concentration of the divalent copper ion and phosphate ion precursor solutions. Via VFD processing, nanostructures are generated in 10 min and exhibit good stability in the absence of chemical stabilizers. In addition, the as-prepared nanoflowers exhibit enhanced catalytic activity for the Fenton degradation of Rhodamine B due to their hierarchical porous structure. The results obtained highlight the utility of the VFD by demonstrating its ability to control the growth and manipulation of inorganic crystalline materials.

The addition of gold nanoparticles to an antibiotic embedded nanomesh altered the amount of antibiotics released over 14 days.