Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 27, Issue 16, 2020

In the last few decades, polysaccharide and protein hydrogels have attracted significant attentions and been applied in various engineering fields. Polysaccharide and protein hydrogels with appealing physical and biological features have been produced to meet different biomedical applications for their excellent properties related to biodegradability, biocompatibility, nontoxicity, and stimuli responsiveness. Numerous methods, s Read More

The abilities of intelligent polymer hydrogels to change their structure and volume phase in response to external stimuli have provided new possibilities for various advanced technologies and great research and application potentials in the medical field. The natural polymer-based hydrogels have the advantages of environment-friendliness, rich sources and good biocompatibility. Based on their responsiveness to ex Read More

Hydrogels are known as polymer-based networks with the ability to absorb water and other body fluids. Because of this, the hydrogels are used to preserve drugs, proteins, nutrients or cells. Hydrogels possess great biocompatibility, and properties like soft tissue, and networks full of water, which allows oxygen, nutrients, and metabolites to pass. Therefore, hydrogels are extensively employed as scaffolds in tissue engineerin Read More

Natural hydrogels are three-dimensional (3D) water-retaining materials with a skeleton consisting of natural polymers, their derivatives or mixtures. Natural hydrogels can provide sustained or controlled drug release and possess some unique properties of natural polymers, such as biodegradability, biocompatibility and some additional functions, such as CD44 targeting of hyaluronic acid. Natural hydrogels can be us Read More

Natural hydrogels, due to their unique biological properties, have been used extensively for various medical and clinical examinations that are performed to investigate the signs of disease. Recently, complex-crosslinking strategies improved the mechanical properties and advanced approaches have resulted in the introduction of naturally derived hydrogels that exhibit high biocompatibility, with shape memory and s Read More

It is well known that the extracellular matrix (ECM) plays a vital role in the growth, survival and differentiation of cells. Though two-dimensional (2D) materials are generally used as substrates for the standard in vitro experiments, their mechanical, structural, and compositional characteristics can alter cell functions drastically. Many scientists reported that cells behave more natively when cultured in three-dimensional (3D) environ Read More