Targeted therapeutics and nanodevices for vascular drug delivery: quo vadis?

This issue of the journal is dedicated to targeted delivery of therapeutics in the vasculature, an approach that holds promise to optimize treatment of diverse pathological conditions ranging from ischemia and tumor growth to metabolic and genetic diseases. From the standpoint of drug delivery, circulation system represents the natural route to the targets, whereas its components (blood and vascular cells) represent targets, carriers or barriers for drug delivery. Diverse nanodevices and targeted therapeutic agents that are designed and tested in animal and early clinical studies to achieve optimal and precise spatiotemporal control of the pharmacokinetics, destination, metabolism and effect of pharmacological agents will be discussed in this introductory essay and subsequent critical reviews in this series.