Dendrimers are a fascinating group of spherical polymer. Nowadays, they are very extensively studiedin terms of biomedical applications. Dendrimers can be used as drug and gene carriers, proteinsbiomimics or imaging carriers. This interest is connecting with their unique structure andphysicochemical properties. The purpose of this research project is to extend the knowledge aboutpoly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers with different generation (G4-G6) as potentialpharmacophores nanocarriers. Thus, very important aspects are to describe the nature of theinteractions that occur between PAMAM dendrimers and plasma protein, and in next step with activeagents (Figure 1). The choice of the therapeutic agents used is a key point of designing nanohybridsystems for biomedical applications. Due to significant development of nanochemistry, this specificgroup of nano-metric macromolecular compound, in the future will revolutionize medicine.Dendrimers will be the basis of nanomedicine replacing many conventional treatments.
Figure 1. Functional hybrid nanomaterial for biomedical application.
The success of novel therapeutic strategies relies strongly on the development of reliable active agentsdelivery mechanism. Despite the constant development of research in biomedicine, it is still lownumber of systematic review about hybrid systems from a molecular point of view. The use of precise,analytical techniques proposed in the project, such as: multi-parametric surface plasmon resonance(MP-SPR), quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D), atomic forcemicroscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), will allow to determine the structureof the layers formed on a nanometric scale under precisely defined and controlled conditions. Animportant aspect of this project is to describe the nature of the interactions that occur between PAMAMdendrimers with active agents and plasma proteins. This will allow to design effective hybrid systemsunderbody’s internal environment conditions, in which a given therapeutic will perform its functions.Physicochemical characterization will make it possible to directly determine the correlation betweenthe structure of the dendrimers and complexes dendrimer/protein, dendrimer/active agent effectivecharge, morphology and stability.
The research focuses on dendrimers are developing very dynamically. According to many opinions,multifunctional nano-sized macromolecules in the nearest future will be the basis of theranosticnanomedicine and in many cases replace currently used drug carriers. This project research results willhelp to expand current knowledge of interactions between dendrimers, plasma proteins and activeagents. Moreover, it will be a kind of basic information necessary for further, more advanced researchon PAMAM dendrimers, especially as intelligent pharmacophores nanocarriers.
