Upregulation of specific signaling molecules such as EPS8 leads to tumor progression of head and neck cancer (HNSCC).Our recent work showed that knockdown of EPS8 in head and neck cancer resulted in effective inhibition of cancer cell growth, proliferation, and metastasis.The goal of our research is to develop an efficient nonviral vector meeting both safety and clinically acceptable transfection efficiency in gene therapy of HNSCC.Particularly, we utilized highly branched nanoscale polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers to develop a novel multifunctional dendritic vector (MDV) and explore RNA interference technology as a therapeutic tool for treatment of head and neck cancer.PAMAM dendrimers are an ideal platform capable of high payload and multifunctionality and our recent studies,which have demonstrated that coupling each of the functional entities proposed above indeed resulted in enhanced delivery, improved transfection, or tumor-specific imaging.The vector design concept is novel in that well-defined dendritic nanoparticles are able to evolve to incorporate new functional entities as they are identified necessary for efficient gene transfection and accurate diagnosis.Highly functionalized dendritic nanoparticles can be engineered through proper chemical modification at the periphery, and the composition, shape, and size can be precisely tuned to meet the strict regulatory requirements of nucleic acid therapeutics intended for use in humans.Furthermore, this new vector can be easily tailored to deliver genes to other specific cell types, tissues, or organs using a similar construction.With the discovery of potent nucleic acid therapeutics and utility of RNA interference strategies, we expect to the yield a promising vector with great potential to help eradicate primary and metastatic disease, improve survival rate, and increase both life expectancy and quality of life for cancer patients, thus making gene therapy of HNSCC a clinically acceptable modality.