Bioinspired applications of functional dendrimers

Dendrimers are well-controlled monodisperse macromolecules with a regular branching repeating unit from the focal core. Well-predictable three-dimensional architectures of dendrimers closely resemble naturally occurring polymeric systems. During the past two decades the research field of dendrimer chemistry has rapidly expanded. Based on the rapid advances in this area, practical applications of dendrimers have been requested and have attracted increasing attention. The structural precision of dendrimers has motivated numerous studies aimed at bioinspired applications because of the versatility of modifications and the well-defined structural characteristics of dendrimers. Bioinspired applications include use as drug and gene delivery vehicles, protein mimics, anticancer or antiviral agents, vaccines and biomedical diagnostic reagents. The present review article contains the recent progress in bioinspired application of dendrimers.