The renewed and increasing interest in lipid self-assembly, phase behaviour and interfacial properties can be related to both a much improved insight in biological systems and the applications of lipids in food and pharmaceutical industry; in the latter, the development of drug delivery systems based on lipids has become in focus. Amphiphilic systems comprise lipids, surfactants as well as different types of polymers, including block and graft copolymers. Research on biological amphiphiles has often been conducted separate from research on synthetic ones. However, in recent years a very fruitful convergence between the two fields has evolved. These new perspectives on fundamental research and applications of lipids are discussed in these proceedings from an international symposium on "Lipid and Polymer Lipid-systems", October 2000 in Chia Laguna in Italy – a joint undertaking of Prof. Maura Monduzzi at Cagliari University, Italy and Camurus Lipid Research Foundation, Lund, Sweden.