Dear Colleagues,

Drug and gene delivery have shown their promise in the treatment of various inherited and acquired diseases, the development of vaccines and tissue regeneration. Safe and efficient drug and gene delivery to target cells and tissues remains a major challenge. The development of clinical realiable drug and gene delivery systems would greatly expidite the translation of drug and gene therapies from bench to bedsides. Compared with other counterparts, multifunctional polymeric materials (such as polymers, liposomes, peptides and inorganic nanoparticles), due to their wide availability of starting materials, flexibility in composition and structure, high safety and non-immunogenicity and scalable synthesis, have attracted significant attention for drug and gene delivery during the last three decades. With the recent progress in chemistry, a series of advanced synthesis strategies have been proposed, many new multifunctional polymeric drug and gene delivery materials have been prepared, and the drug and gene delivery efficiency and safety profiles have been substantially improved. Especially, numerous clinical trials are ongoing. In this Special Issue, we are soliciting original research papers and review articles which cover these new progresses in the field, especially the emerging synthesis strategies, the in-depth understanding of chemical composition/structure and physiological properties of the multifunctional polymeric materials, encouraging in vitro and in vivo evaluation of the developed polymeric materials for drug and gene delivery, and the potential challenges in translating the multifunctional polymeric materials from bench to clinical settings, with the expectation to provide new insights into the development of next generation of polymeric materials for drug and gene delivery.

And the Guest Editor Assistants for this special issue is:

Zhili Li
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology (SCET), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China
Interests: hyperbranched polymers; cyclized polymers; biomaterials; hydrogels; microcarriers

Prof. Dr. Dezhong Zhou
Guest Editor

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• gene therapy
• non-viral gene vectors
• transfection efficiency
• safety profile
• clinical translation