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It was with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation of Springer to edit
this book.My association with the vascular endothelium covers a large part of
my scientific career and, as with any good long-standing relationship, it has
had moments of great excitement and periods of laborious construction. It
has sometimes been difficult but has never given me cause for despondency.
Indeed, in the last quarter of a century, research on the vascular endothelium
has been very productive and its results have contributed, arguablymore than
any others, to unravelling the mystery of cardiovascular disease, its origin,
its development, its complications and its prevention or treatment once it has
developed.
I am very happy that Annie Higgs agreed to join me in this task. Over the
years we have collaborated closely and, as always, she has shouldered the brunt
of the work and has made sure that things get done to everybody’s satisfaction.
We have also been fortunate in that the scientists who have made some of
the most significant contributions in the field agreed to write chapters; as
a result, we have produced two volumes which is a good representation of our
knowledge in early 2006. We are, however, aware that the field has expanded
beyond all expectation and that there may have been some oversight in the
covering of a specific area or some aspect of it. This is compounded by the
speed at which knowledge is being generated, with more than 4,100 papers
concerning the endothelium published in 2005.
These volumes are organised in such a way that the early chapters discuss the
structure, development and function of the normal vascular endothelium. The
subsequent chapters consider conditions that lead to disruption of vascular
physiology, while the later chapters deal with specific pathologies and their
treatment. The final chapter describes various gene-therapy strategies for the
treatment of vascular pathologies. Interestingly, although this field of research
can now be considered mature, it continues to generate a great deal of new
information at a time when some of its fruits are having a direct impact on
clinical medicine. This is clearly exemplified in the contents of most of the
chapters. |