Serena Rosa Alfarano

Abstract Water has challenged scientists with numerous anomalies and confounding problems since the very early times. The kinetic glass transition of bulk water is a pristine example, as its location remains mostly inaccessible to experimentalists in an area below about −41 °C, where bulk water spontaneously crystallises. Confining water within nanometre-sized domains is an intriguing approach inspired by the cellular environment in nature to completely prevent crystallisation.

1 Introduction Lipid inverse bicontinuous cubic phases (IBCPs) are versatile nanostructures that present unique opportunities in a broad range of applications, including drug delivery,[1, 2] membrane protein crystallization[3-5] and nanoreactors design.[6] One of their key strengths is the increase in their interfacial surface area compared to hexagonal, micellar, or lamellar lipidic mesophases.