With significant attention focused on nanoscience and nanotechnology in recent years, materials science has been propelled to the forefront by researchers from both academia and industry. Hard and soft nanostructured materials were produced and studied, such as nanoparticles, nanocapsules, micelles, microemulsions, liposomes, nanoporous materials, polymer multilayers, and so on.

The unique nanoscale structure of nanomaterials gives rise to vast ratio of surface area to volume so that the quantum mechanical effects are derived, which leads to a quite different behavior of nanomaterials compared with the traditional materials. Nanomaterials have therefore been used in a wide variety of applications such as automotive, environmental, energy, catalysis, biomedical, drug delivery, and polymeric industries. Among those fields, the application of nanomaterials with pharmaceutical science is an emerging and rapidly growing field and has drawn increasing attention recently. Research and development in this field is mainly focused on several aspects such as the discoveries of novel functional nanomaterials, exploration on nanoparticles with controlled and targeted drug delivery characteristics, investigation of biofunctionalized and diagnostic nanomaterials. With the help of nanoscience and nanotechnology, people were able to tackle the toughest pharmaceutical problems. For instance, reports on stimuli-responsive polymeric nanocarrier systems for drug and gene delivery have started attracting public focus.

This special issue of Journal of Nanomaterials aims to attract high-quality research articles related to the application of polymeric nanomaterials for pharmaceutical sciences and to bring together the latest work in this rapidly growing field. It intends to cover the research and development work ranged from the fundamental mechanism for the fabrication of polymeric nanomaterials to their advanced application in pharmaceutical science:

• Toxicology of polymeric nanoparticles
• Novel routes to fabricate polymeric nanomaterials
• Targeted and controlled drug delivery with nanoparticles
• Nanomaterials for medical diagnosis
• Nanomaterials for tissue regeneration
• Biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles
• Liposomal drug delivery
• Polymeric micelle/nanocapsule-based drug carriers
• Microemulsion-based media for drug delivery
• Nanoporous polymeric materials as drug carriers
• Hydrogel nanocomposites for drug delivery
• Theoretical and computational modeling of drug delivery using nanomaterials

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/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: