Teams publishing in Gene Therapy reported engineered AAV variants that substantially improve transduction of human vascular endothelial cells. Stamataki et al. screened and identified capsid variants with elevated uptake in human vessel cells, addressing a known limitation of standard AAV serotypes for vascular gene therapy. Parallel work corroborated enhanced human vessel cell targeting and suggested routes to clinical translation. Improved endothelial tropism could unlock gene therapies for vascular diseases and facilitate delivery for cardiac and peripheral vascular indications. The studies provide candidate capsids for preclinical toxicity and biodistribution testing prior to human trials.