Lipidoids: A Combinatorial Approach to siRNA Delivery

The safe and effective delivery of siRNA remains the principal challenge to the realization of its clinical potential. The present collection of delivery materials and their diversity remains limited, in part due to their slow, multistep syntheses. This chapter will describe a class of lipid-like delivery molecules, termed “lipidoids,” as carriers for RNAi therapeutics. Specifically, the chapter will address the rationale underlying the combinatorial approach; the synthetic chemical methods employed; the screening assay utilized; the structure–activity relationships determined; the formulation considerations learned; several applications of the platform; and the evolution of the strategy to generate next-generation libraries.