Liposomes have been widely investigated since 1970 as drug carriers for improving the delivery of therapeutic agents to specific sites in the body. As a result, numerous improvements have been made, thus making this technology potentially useful for the treatment of certain diseases in the clinics. The success of liposomes as drug carriers has been reflected in a number of liposome-based formulations, which are commercially available or are currently undergoing clinical trials. The current pharmaceutical preparations of liposome-based therapeutic systems mainly result from our understanding of lipid-drug interactions and liposome disposition mechanisms. The insight gained from clinical use of liposome drug delivery systems can now be integrated to design liposomes that can be targeted on tissues, cells or intracellular compartments with or without expression of target recognition molecules on liposome membranes. This review is mainly focused on the diseases that have attracted most attention with respect to liposomal drug delivery and have therefore yielded most progress, namely cancer, antibacterial and antifungal disorders. In addition, increased gene transfer efficiencies could be obtained by appropriate selection of the gene transfer vector and mode of delivery.Od 1970. godine liposomi se intenzivno istražuju kao nosači ljekovitih tvari za isporuku u određene dijelova organizma. Unapređenje i razvoj liposoma omogućili su njihovu kliničku primjenu u terapiji određenih bolesti. Na tržištu je prisutan određen broj ljekovitih oblika na bazi liposoma, a dio je još u kliničkim pokusima. Svi su oni rezultat boljeg razumjevanja raspodjele liposoma i interakcija između lipida i ljekovite tvari. Moguće je pripremiti liposome koji se mogu usmjeriti u određena tkiva, stanice ili međustanične prostore, sa ili bez vezanih molekula za prepoznavanje na površini membrane. Ovaj revijalni članak uglavnom obuhvaća liposome za terapiju karcinoma, bakterijskih i gljivičnih infekcija jer je u tim područjima primjena liposoma najviše opravdana i stoga najviše istraživana. Osim toga, pravilnim izborom vektora za prijenos gena i načina isporuke može se povećati i učinkovitost prijenosa gena