"Targeting Nanomedicine to Vascular Endothelium"

Vladimir Muzykantov, MD, PhD
Department of Pharmacology
Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania

Carriers assembled in multimolecular sub-micron structures provide drug delivery systems that improve the pharmacokinetics and provide targeting to desirable sites – tissues, cells and subcellular compartments. Vascular system is both the natural route for delivery to the therapeutic targets in the body and, in many cases, represents a therapeutic site itself. In particular, endothelial cells lining the vascular luminal surface represent the target, barrier or victim of circulating nanomedicine agents. He will discuss design of nanomedicine agents targeted to endothelium, factors that control their cellular uptake, trafficking and effects, consider examples of their experimental therapeutic use in animal models of acute vascular conditions including inflammation and appraise translational aspects.