Cancer is today the major cause of morbidity and mortality in western and industrialized countries. Anticancer drugs often need to be used at high doses in order to achieve a significant antitumor activity and can induce damaging effects on normal tissues since they are not specific for cancer cells. Also new target-based agents, raised against molecular targets putatively altered in cancer cells, are not strictly specific for tumour tissues. In fact, their targets are often involved in the maintenance of the homeostasis of several normal tissues. The emergence of nanomedicine science has opened a novel scenario in the administration modalities of both conventional cytotoxic drugs and target-based agents with the possibility to improve their efficacy and to reduce their side effects. This can be achieved by the nanotechnology-mediated delivery of anticancer agents in tumor tissues sparing healthy ones. Nanotechnologies can also allow delivery in tumor tissues of new biopharmaceutical agents based on nucleic acids, such as plasmids, antisense oligonucleotides, decoy oligonucleotides, small interfering RNAs, and microRNAs.

Presently, lipid-based nanovectors, and in details liposomes, are the only nanotechnological formulations already used in the clinical practice, while polymeric nanovectors are in advanced phase of clinical development in several countries. Moreover, a growing number of research groups are working to expand the applications of nanotechnological platforms in cancer from drug delivery to diagnostics. Finally, continuous efforts by investigators are aimed to optimize the performance of nanovectors in order to increase the selectivity toward target tissues and/or cells.

We invite researchers to contribute to this special issue with original articles or reviews to cover all the aspects of the nanotechnologies in cancer therapy. In particular, potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• New biomaterials and/or nanovectors for drug delivery and/or diagnostics
• New applications of biomaterials and/or nanovectors for drug delivery and/or diagnostics
• Polymeric conjugates for drug delivery and/or diagnostics
• Nanotechnologies for gene/oligonucleotide delivery
• Physicochemical evaluation of nanocarriers in biological environments
• Nanovehicle strategies for improvement of ADME of therapeutic molecules
• Properties affecting tumor targeting of nanocarriers
• Preclinical evidence for usefulness of Nanotechnologies in cancer
• Clinical studies with Nanotechnology-based products
• Impact of Nanotechnologies on clinical practice

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jdd/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: