Industrial-Scale Process Devised for Producing Big Molecules

Scientists have developed a new method that will enable manufacturers to produce industrial-size batches of dendrimers for the first time. Dendrimers are giant molecules with tree-like branches with a range of potentially valuable commercial and industrial applications.

The study, performed by researchers from Texas A&M University (College Station, TX, USA), was published the March 21, 2008, issue of Journal of Organic Chemistry. Dendrimers can be produced in custom-designed shapes, sizes, structures, and weights suitable for specific uses. Those potential applications range from drug delivery and gene transfer to new materials, coatings, sensors, and herbicides. However, because they require multiple steps to make, dendrimers are difficult to produce on an industrial scale.

In their new study, Drs. Abdellatif Chouai and Eric E. Simanek described a practical large-scale synthesis of dendrimers that circumvent this barrier. Their method yields a so-called "uncommitted intermediate”; a dendrimer scaffolding that can be built upon in numerous ways. This intermediate "can be elaborated into a wealth of diagnostic and therapeutic dendrimers--some of which are currently being explored in our laboratory,” the researchers added.


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