Angiogenesis as therapeutic target has emerged since early works by Judah Folkman, yet his "holy grail" was inhibiting vascular growth to block tumor nutrition. However, in modern biomedicine, "therapeutic angiogenesis" became a large ield focusing on stimulation of blood vessel growth for ischemia relief to reduce its detrimental efects in the tissues. In this review, we introduce basic principles of tissue vascularization in response to ischemia exploited in this ield. An overview of recent status in therapeutic angiogenesis is given with introduction to emerging technologies, including gene therapy, genetic modiication of cells ex vivo and tissue engineering.