Title:Synthesis and Biomedical Applications of Dendrimers
Volume: 22
Issue: 6
Author(s): Liping Zhou, Yuling Shan, Hao Hu, Bing Yu and Hailin Cong*
Affiliation:
- Institute of Biomedical Materials and Engineering, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071,China
Keywords:
Dendrimer, Poly(amidoamine) dendrimers, synthetic dendrimers, drug delivery, genetic delivery, photothermic and photodynamic
therapy, biomedical imaging.
Abstract: Dendrimers are a kind of macromolecule materials composed of central nuclei,
repeating units and terminal groups. The dendritic topology leads to unique threedimensional
architecture with mono-distribution at the nano-scale. Considerable attention
has been focused on the high-efficient synthesis and potential applications of dendrimer in
various fields such as biomedicine, catalysts, membrane materials and biosensors. Due to
the precise structure and the abundant surface functional groups, dendrimers are useful
biomedical materials. This review summarizes the present condition and development of
the versatile dendrimers as biomaterials. We discuss synthetic methods, including divergence
and convergence method, click reaction method, one pot method and supramolecular
self-assembly method as well as the biomedical application such as tissue engineering,
drug and gene delivery, biomedical imaging and sensing of dendrimers.