Peptide dendrimers

Dendritic molecules have been introduced in the 1979's by Prof. F. Vögtle, D. Tomalia and G. Newcome, and have been a quite active field in the past few years. The application of the dendrimer concept to amino acids, leads to peptide dendrimers which resembling artificial proteins exhibiting some interesting features like: thermal robustness, non-denaturability, and possible resistance to proteases. Peptide dendrimers might also exhibit new and unforeseen properties not accessible to natural proteins.

Our objective is to understand the folding process and the structure-activity relationships in peptide dendrimers. We apply the well established principles behind protein modeling and simulation, to peptide dendrimers. The information obtained at the molecular level can help us to understand the mechanisms behind the thermal robustness and the resistance to proteases.