Preface

Topics in Current Chemistry volume 197, entitled “Dendrimers”, turned outto be so attractive to the readers that it was extremely successful and thisencouraged us to continue. In addition, the first volume was exclusively dedicat-ed to dendrimer chemistry, which covers only a small selection of the topics inthis field. Moreover, the subject dendrimers has undergone a further upturnsince the publication of the first volume. The present volume “Dendrimers II”by pioneers in this new research field deals with the aspects of dendrimersmentioned in the subtitle but also touches on areas beyond chemistry.

What makes dendrimers so attractive that chemists have difficulty in avoidingthem? Virtually every chemist can contribute to dendrimer chemistry, be it witha certain synthetic method which is also applicable to dendritic structures, be itwith polymer chemical and analytical methods or supramolecular aspects suchas host/guest interactions. Dendrimers have developed into an amalgam, into a“market place” of chemistry in which all the branches of chemistry – organic,inorganic, physical-chemical, polymer-chemical or analytical chemistry – havecome together and stimulate each other. Dendrimers have become a “molecularreaction vessel” in the figurative sense.

Similarly biological and material sciences benefit, for dendrimers have provedto be useful in diagnostics, as a component of thin layers, in catalysis as well asin nano sciences. This inter-disciplinary “input” has stimulated chemistry as awhole in that it has led to the development of optimized analytical devices.

Due to the possibility of preparing a variety of different dendrimer types withperfectly or less precisely directed macroarchitecture, synergistic effects can be expected with an appropriate design. Some interesting questions such as den-dritic combinatorial libraries have only been touched on as yet. Therefore prop-erties beyond those of conventional building blocks might result.

The First International Dendrimer Symposium which took place in theDECHEMA-building in Frankfurt (3–5 October 1999) brought together manychemists who had been working in different fields. It showed that the new type of molecular cascade architecture, initiated 22 years ago, has meanwhiledeveloped a significant potential with promising options for the future broughtabout by the current theoretical, computational and experimental possibilties.

We hope that this new collection of reviews will help all chemists to furtherdevelop this stimulating branching of branches in this field of research.

Bonn, April 2000 F. Vögtle