Synthesis of dendrimers and drug-dendrimer conjugates for drug delivery.

Dendrimers constitute a class of polymers that possess a well-defined structure allowing the precise control of size, shape and terminal group functionality. Their utility has been explored for a wide range of pharmaceutical applications. There is growing interest in the design and synthesis of novel biocompatible dendrimers and a number of novel dendrimer architectures are discussed in this review. Recently, there has also been interest in the design of drug-dendrimer prodrugs and several of these systems are described, with emphasis on how the properties of such carriers may be tailored via surface engineering.