Designing dendrimer-based lymphatic drug vectors as improved treatments for metastatic cancer

Dendrimers are star-shaped macromolecular polymers that show significant promise as novel nanomaterials and have potential applications in drug delivery, biosensors and diagnostics. The current application seeks to design dendrimer-based drug delivery systems with targeted affinity for the lymphatic system. Many tumours, including breast cancer, prostate cancer and melanoma spread (metastasize) via the lymph and up to 90% of cancer deaths are caused by metastases. A better understanding of the molecular characteristics that are required to promote the lymphatic uptake of dendritic nanomaterials therefore has the potential to revolutionize the design of novel drug delivery systems for the treatment of metastatic cancer.