Nanostructured lipid aggregates offer enormous potential as tools for membrane structural biology and biophysics. Styrene-Maleic Acid Lipid Particles have a number of attractive characteristics including stability, ease of preparation and cost. We are particularly interested in using SMALPs to investigate the role of membrane curvature, an aspect of membrane biology that is extremely challenging to probe. We have developed a theoretical model that predicts how changes in intrinsic bulk membrane curvature (e.g. via introduction of fatty acids) will affect SMALP size and shape. We propose an investigation of SMALP shape as a function of composition and temperature that will for the first time enable us to determine the fundamental biophysical parameters that underly membrane behaviour and investigate the potential of SMALPS for further study of the role of curvature in membrane biology.