Figure 1.

Schematic highlighting: (A) the influence of spontaneous curvature (C₀) upon the osmotically induced shape transformations of spherical polymersomes into prolates (tubes) or oblates (stomatocytes) and (B) the proposed mechanism for inducing negative membrane curvature toward stomatocyte formation. In our strategy, transient negative C₀ is induced in a PEG–PDLLA membrane by rapid removal of organic solvent molecules (red spheres) from the external microenvironment (by dialysis) leading to anisotropic hydrodynamic chain volume (V_h) of PEG between the exterior and interior surfaces.