With this award, the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program supports Dominic McGrath of the University of Arizona whose research will address the further design, development and implementation of the controlled dendrimer degradation technology known as 'dendrimer disassembly' that was recently developed in his laboratory. Dendrimer disassembly relies on a single triggering event to initiate multiple cleavages throughout a dendritic structure that result in release of individual dendrimer subunits or larger dendrimer fragments. The potential of this process lies in the nature of dendrimers as covalent assemblages of active species, and using the chemistry of disassembly to release these species into a system. Further advantages include the role of dendritic components of a system in influencing solubility, energy harvesting, or insulating capabilities, and using the chemistry of disassembly to reverse those contributions to a system. The proposed work presents a systematic, four-part research plan to further develop dendrimer disassembly technology. First will be the design and implementation new synthetic strategies for preparing disassembling dendritic structures in a more efficient and higher yielding fashion. Second, new disassembling structures based on fundamentally different dendrimer subunits will be prepared. Third, controlled disassembly and subunit trapping studies will be used to assay the capability and reactivity of these new systems. And fourth, new effective implementations of disassembling structures as application of their unique reactivity will be initiated.
With this award, the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program supports Dominic McGrath of the University of Arizona whose research will result in the further development of an entirely new concept in nanotechnology, dendrimer disassembly. Materials prepared as part of this research plan will (a) be useful for traditional polymer degradation technologies, and (b) have potential enhanced capabilities in nanotechnology, biomedicine, and sensor technology. Since this research program is a coherent combination of molecular design, synthesis, and characterization, with important considerations of organic reactivity, students will obtain a broad array of experiences in the larger area of materials chemistry. Hence, this research is ideally suited to the education of graduate, postdoctoral, as well as undergraduate students. In fact, undergraduates in Professor McGrath's group have made several significant advances in the previous project period, which will be enhanced in this project period by the investigation of applications of dendrimer disassembly. These applications are interdisciplinary in nature, and interdisciplinary research provides a unique training environment for undergraduates and graduate students.
