Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 8, Issue 14, 2008

There is no doubt that in science in the 21st century, developments in the field of the so-called Nanosciences will feature widely. Nanosciences deal with nanomolecules and their applications, particularly those in materials science and biomedicine. Biomedical applications of nanomolecules can be said to have originated with the development of polymer chemistry and these applications have now been extended with the appear Read More

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In recent years, medicinal chemists have begun to realize that dendrimers may be a keystone in the future of medicine. The field of oncology will soon be revolutionized by novel strategies for diagnosis and therapy employing dendrimer-based nanodevices. In the near future, cancer diagnosis via MRI will be improved by the incorporation of dendrimers as advanced contrast agents. Novel dendrimer-based contrast agents can n Read More

The extensive adaptability of dendrimer-based contrast agents is ideal for the molecular imaging of organs and other target-specific locations. The ability of literally atom-by-atom modification on cores, interiors, and surface groups, permits the rational manipulation of dendrimer-based agents in order to optimize their physical characteristics, biodistribution, receptor-mediated targeting, and controlled release of the payload. Su Read More

This article focuses on the ability of dendritic molecules to interact with nucleic acids and hence deliver them into cells. Dendritic molecules have branched structures which are made by an iterative, layer-by-layer synthesis. The control applied in their synthesis means that dendrimers are well-defined nanoscale molecular species - ideal for interacting with nanoscale bio-targets such as DNA/RNA. Binding and delivery of genetic Read More

This review describes the strategy for the development of multifunctional dendrimeric and hyperbranched polymers, collectively named dendritic polymers, aiming at their application as drug and gene delivery systems. Employing well-characterized and mainly commercially available dendritic polymers, the functionalization of these polymers is aimed at providing drug carriers of low toxicity, high encapsulating capacity, specific Read More

Despite the wide-spread use of dendrimers in biomedical applications, their use in the fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds has been limited. The highly branched, multivalent nature of dendrimers makes them ideal candidates for a variety of tissue engineering applications, including as crosslinking agents, modulators of surface charge and surface chemistry, and as primary components in scaffolds that mimic natural ex Read More

Carbohydrate protein interactions are at the front of several biological interactions spanning from cell growth and differentiation, cell signaling, apoptosis, cancer, and microbial infections. Classical medicinal glycochemistry has so far concentrated on designing glycosyl transferase and glycohydrolase inhibitors for which only handful candidates have emerged. Added to the complexity of drug resistances, drugs in develo Read More

Combinatorial libraries of peptide dendrimers bearing two and four copies of C-fucosyl residues were screened for binding to fucose specific lectins leading to potent ligands for Ulex europaeus lectin UEA-I (IC50 = 11 μM). The dendrimers also show high affinity for the lectin PA-IIL (IC50 = 0.14 μM) from the pathogenic bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The dendrimers described are the first multivalent ligands for these lectins. Read More

Two general aspects which need to be considered for the successful application of dendrimers for biomedical purposes are their availability at an acceptable cost and their suitability as regards their pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties. These two aspects are covered in this review. In the first part, synthetic strategies for the preparation of dendrimers are outlined and emphasis is given to recent work on met Read More

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