Self-Assembled Multivalency: Dynamic Ligand Arrays for High-Affinity Binding

Multivalency is a powerful strategy for achieving high‐affinity molecular recognition in biological systems. Recently, attention has begun to focus on using self‐assembly rather than covalent scaffold synthesis to organize multiple ligands. This approach has a number of advantages, including ease of synthesis/assembly, tunability of nanostructure morphology and ligands, potential to incorporate multiple active units, and the responsive nature of self‐assembly. We suggest that self‐assembled multivalency is a strategy of fundamental importance in the design of synthetic nanosystems to intervene in biological pathways and has potential applications in nanomedicine. The power of many: The use of self‐assembly to create dynamic multivalency (see scheme) is a powerful strategy, with some significant advantages over the use of static multivalent arrays. It mimics processes which occur naturally within cell membranes, and has a wide range of potential applications, both in nanomaterials science and nanomedicine.