Designing dendrimers for drug delivery.
Dendrimers are highly branched three-dimensional macromolecules with highly controlled structures, a single molecular weight, a large number of controllable 'peripheral' functionalities and a tendency to adopt a globular shape once a certain size is reached. These features have made their application in pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry particularly attractive. This review briefly discusses the preparation of dendrimers, their use as gene delivery agents and magnetic resonance imaging agents, and their potential for applications in drug delivery.
Liu
M
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1460, USA.
Fréchet
JM