Dendritic Nanocarrier Platforms for Gene and Drug Delivery Applications

Dendrimers are a unique class of polymers possessing three-dimensional, chemically well-defined, hyperbranched architecture, along with conformational flexibility and high surface area topology. These characteristic features, as well as their modularity-by precisely controlling their nanoscale size and surface functional groups, distinguish them from conventional linear polymers and make them well suited for a variety of biomedical applications. In this chapter, we highlight the synthetic routes and recent biomedical applications of several representative dendrimers and dendritic nanoparticles, with a focus on their use in targeted drug and gene delivery. In addition, we also discuss recently reported hybridization approaches that integrate dendritic polymers with other types of polymers in an effort to overcome current hurdles that have hindered the rapid clinical translation of dendritic polymers.