Recent developments in nanotechnology have provided new research strategies to improve the field of drug delivery. For pharmaceutical purposes, nanoparticles in the size range of 10 to 400 nm consist of macromolecular materials in which the active ingredient (a variety of therapeutic agents such as small molecules (hydrophilic and/or hydrophobic), peptides protein-based drugs, and nucleic acids) is entrapped or encapsulated by, or dissolved, adsorbed, and attached to the carrier. Using nanotechnology-based strategies, the solubility and stability of the drugs can be improved, providing an opportunity to reevaluate potential drugs previously ignored because of poor pharmacokinetics.

Several nanoscaled drug delivery systems have achieved marketing authorization although the full potential of these systems is only starting to be explored.

Nanoparticles have been developed with a diverse array of shapes, sizes, and components that enables them to be tailored for specific applications. However, the primary consideration when designing any drug delivery system is to achieve more effective therapies by controlling the drug concentration in the therapeutic window, reducing adverse effects, and improving patient compliance. This allows effective treatment cycles to be maintained while reducing damage to healthy cells and minimizing the recovery period. This becomes very important in the area of cancer treatment as most of therapies in the market have formulation limitations or severe side effects attributed to the nontargeting nature of those medicines. Nanoparticles with both passive and active targeting abilities have shown huge potentials in this regard.

We invite authors to submit original research and review articles that seek to describe novel approaches in the field of nanotechnology-based carriers for cancer treatment. We are especially interested in articles that deal with developments and in vitro and in vivo experiments of multifunctional nanoparticles that act as both diagnostic and therapeutic agents against tumors. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Development and testing of novel and effective receptor-oriented nanoparticles
• Development and characterization of multifunctional nanoparticles against tumors
• Investigation on the application of aptamers as targeting moieties used for nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems
• Drug-polymer conjugates as self-assembly nanoparticles
• Novel nanotechnology based approaches against cancer stem cells
• Functional nanoparticles for effective brain delivery of antitumor agents
• Use of magnetic nanoparticles for targeted delivery of toxic agents against tumor cells

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