Developments in macromolecular drug delivery.

Macromolecular drugs hold great promise as novel therapeutics of several major disorders, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. However, their use is limited by lack of efficient, safe, and specific delivery strategies. Successful development of such strategies requires interdisciplinary collaborations involving researchers with expertise on, e.g., polymer chemistry, cell biology, nanotechnology, systems biology, advanced imaging methods, and clinical medicine. This not only poses obvious challenges to the scientific community but also provides opportunities for the unexpected at the interface between different disciplines. This introductory chapter summarizes and gives references to studies on macromolecular delivery that should be of interest to a broad scientific audience involved in macromolecular drug synthesis as well as in vitro and in vivo drug delivery studies