The Second Annual International Symposium on Cardiovascular Drug Delivery was held October 13-15, 1996, in Cambridge, Mass. Drs Steven Bailey of the University of Texas, Elazer R. Edelman of the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and MIT, and Keith March of the University of Indiana and the Krannert Institute organized the 2½-day event. More than 225 people attended, and 47 speakers from a range of cardiovascular disciplines presented overviews of principles and leading experiments in the field. The symposium commenced with seven interactive workshops dedicated to critical issues in cardiovascular drug delivery. Dr Keith Robinson of Emory University and Dr Robert Schwartz of the Mayo Clinic reviewed the current state of animal models of cardiovascular disease and the techniques available for their quantitative assessment. An extensive and comprehensive review of model protocols and tissue preservation, handling, and analysis was provided, along with an evaluation of computer-based resources for morphometric assessment. Drs Renu Virmani and Andrew Farb of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology provided an overview of cardiovascular pathology and anatomy including a detailed histological account of accelerated vascular disease in animal models and humans. Dr Jeffrey Hubbel of the California Institute of Technology and Dr Prasad Shastri of MIT described the field of polymer chemistry and biomaterials. Starting with first principles, they provided rules by which to choose proper materials for drug-delivery platforms and tissue-engineered scaffoldings. Dr Charles Lambert of the University of Florida and Dr Bailey discussed the current status of catheters and their use in local vascular drug delivery. They reviewed the currently available catheters as well as considerations of basic design, functional characteristics, and results from animal and human studies. Dr Steve Hanson of Emory University and Mark Lovich of MIT described issues related to pharmacokinetics and how this discipline impacts on drug delivery …
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