Carbohydrates are important biological molecules involved in many natural events such as cell-cell interactions. In this capacity, sugars are often presented in a multivalent fashion. This allows for much stronger binding between sugars and their complementary receptors than what is possible in monovalent interactions. This natural phenomenon can now be mimicked in the laboratory by appending sugars to synthetic multivalent core molecules known as dendrimers to make the corresponding glycodendrimers. Glycodendrimers are now being synthesized to not only study natural interactions in the laboratory, but also as potential therapeutic agents to block host-pathogen contact.

In the design of the target glycodendrimers, considerations were made regarding how the sugars were attached to the dendrimer cores and what the composition of the dendrimer would be. It was desired that the glycodendrimers be made in as few steps as possible. The method employed to construct the glycodendrimers involved first appending the sugars to a flexible hydrophilic linker, using little or no protecting group chemistry. Once the sugar-linker molecules were synthesized, they could be attached convergently to a variety of cores to give the glycodendrimers. The biological properties of these interesting molecules can then begin to be investigated.