Dendrimers for Advanced Drug Delivery

Dendrimers are 3D hyperbranched nanoscopic compounds in which active molecule is loaded non-covalently or covalently coupled on the surface for the drug delivery applications. The potential of linking or entrapping bioactive molecule or drug into dendrimer improves solubility, bioavailability, and biological properties. These are known for their size, shape, monodispersity, drug protection, cellular internalization, and controlled drug release. The biological and physicochemical properties can be modified during their synthesis. The chemical modification of dendrimers enhances its functionality to couple the ligand for targeting and enhances biocompatibility. Dendrimers obviously have potential to use it as drug carrier or gene carrier. Non-biodegradability is the main concern about the dendrimers which causes toxicity in cells or tissues due to the accumulation of synthetic polymers. Thus, biodegradable dendrimers have been developed with unique architecture, plentiful cavities, and surface functionalities. The cytotoxicity of dendrimers can be reduced by modifying with carbohydrates, polyethylene glycol, ligands, or other compounds which do not affect cell and parallelly improve other properties. The emphasis of this chapter is to cover recent advances in dendrimer technology, applications in drug delivery, cytotoxicity.