Designing dendrimer-based nanosystems for multimodal imaging and theranostic applications

Recently, nanoparticle technologies have experienced rapid growth toward the goal of clinical applications in the treatment and diagnosis of disease. While the inherent potential of these technologies has been realized, the ability to noninvasively visualize the site-specific delivery of therapeutics remains a highly sought after goal in biomedical engineering. Toward this goal, the design of multifunctional nanoparticles has emerged as an attractive means to satisfy these criteria. Steps toward designing these multifunctional nanoparticles have generated interest in the development of both intelligent nanosystems, intrinsically capable of responding to external cues, and multimodal molecular probes, capable of obtaining information from multiple imaging modalities. Design and implementation of these types of nanosystems often necessitates modifications to one of three widely established classes of nanoparticle technologies, (1) solid polymeric or metallic, (2) vesicular, or (3) macromolecular. Macromolecules, specifically dendrimers, offer a versatility that is particularly well suited to the generation of multifunctional nanosystems.;Dendrimers are a class of macromolecules characterized by a branched architecture emanating from a central core that have seen widespread use in biomedical applications. The inherent surface functionality and internal structure have enabled dendrimers to potentially facilitate both noninvasive imaging and therapeutic delivery. To achieve optimal performance with these intended diagnostic and therapeutic applications, dendrimers often require specific chemical surface modifications to enhance their physiochemical properties. In this work, we demonstrate various chemical manipulations of the dendrimer surface architecture in order to engineer optimal characteristics for intelligent delivery of therapeutics and noninvasive multimodal imaging.