Professor Virgil Percec discussed the discovery of Janus dendrimers, amphiphilic branched nanostructures that are able to self-assemble in water to form a variety of nanosized packets of different shapes capable of mimicking biological membranes, in the inaugral Kavali Foundation Innovations in Chemistry lecture at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The potential applications of these so called dendrimersomes include the delivery of therapeutically relevant molecules to sites of interest in the body. Similar to liposomes, therapeutic agents can be encapsulated in these packets and delivered to the tumor site, circumventing toxicity or solubility issues. The advantage of dendrimersomes over liposomes, an established formulation method, is their stability and uniformity in size and dispersion.
While their full scope of application has yet to be established, the possibilities appear endless.
- Watch the video of the talk
Mimicking Mother Nature yields promising materials for drug delivery and other applications
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