CHAPTER 4. Poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) Dendrimers: Synthesis and Biological Applications

Poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers are the most intensively studied class of dendrimers since the seminal report of Tomalia et al. in 1985. PAMAM dendrimers have many outstanding characteristics that make them highly suited to biological applications, including their peptide-mimicking amide backbones, numerous interior and terminal amine functionalities, nanosized three-dimensional architecture, well-defined dendritic structure and intrinsically generated multivalent cooperativity. PAMAM dendrimers can be readily synthesized, and are commercially available at an affordable price. In this chapter, we present an overview of the synthesis of PAMAM dendrimers and their related biological applications as drugs, and as systems for delivering drugs, nucleic acids and imaging agents for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.