Dendrimers in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Abstract

The emergence of nanotechnology in the 1980s was caused by the convergence of experimental advances such as the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981 and the discovery of fullerenes in 1985. Since nanotechnologies include the design, production, characterization, and application of structures, devices and systems for management of size and shape at nanometer scale, they can handle and form materials at the atomic scale. Nanotechnology provides useful materials, devices, and systems via the manipulation of tiny matter with at least one dimension smaller than 100 nm. Nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary science spreading to almost all hard sciences including physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Nanoscale devices are three to five orders of magnitude smaller than human cells. This means that their size corresponds to large biological molecules, such as enzymes and receptors. Their diameter in the range of 1–100 nm corresponds to molecular mass in the interval 104–107 Da and a number of atoms within 103–109 atoms. These nanodimensions allowed nanoscale systems to act both on the cell surface and in inner parts of cells. Therefore, nanoscale systems can detect diseases and deliver the cargo to the exact target in a way unknown so far. The tailored artificial nanostructures can serve for sensing and repair of damaged parts of human body. In this way, their function can resemble or outperform naturally occurring biological systems, e.g. the white blood cells. Due to nanoscale size of dendrimers, the multidisciplinary field of dendrimers and nanotechnology have many similar features and overlaps. There is an overlap between sets of nanomaterials and dendrimers. The overlap can be seen in physical (size), chemical, and biological properties. In the following text we give some examples, where dendrimers (especially glyco and glycopeptide dendrimers) are both conjugated with other nanostructures or played a role of nanostructures themselves. The dendrimeric nanostructures possess improved quality of physical, chemical, and biological properties such as solubility, stability, ability to work as delivery systems, and many others. The immense potential of nanotechnology reaches to prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, viral, and bacterial diseases. Different sorts of dendrimers serving as nanomaterials are discussed with many examples.