Recent Research on Medical Hydrogels

Dear Colleagues,

This issue aims to display recent advances in hydrogel-related research, as well as its important contributions to healthcare applications. Hydrogels are medically regarded as a supportive matrix and, due to their distinctive properties, can be used under various forms, such as gels, sheets, or scaffolds, and can display their purposes after being injected, processed into scaffolds, administered orally, or topically. Further, research topics include the synthesis and characterization of the hydrogels, as well as their different medical uses such as wound dressings for various types of wounds, diagnosis applications (sensors, functional coatings), tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. An important aspect when developing a new hydrogel material is to improve biocompatibility, biodegradability, and mechanical properties. On the other hand, hydrogels may be used, for example, as 3D scaffolds for cell culture and tissue regeneration by incorporating bioactive molecules or cells into the hydrogel matrix or by obtaining the hydrogels from decellularized extracellular matrices. Another advantage of hydrogels is that they can be designed as drug delivery systems suitable for controlled and targeted release. Also, they may be chosen in formulation studies to improve drug absorption because of their mucoadhesive and bioadhesive properties. Moreover, recent research also focused on the role of hydrogels in personalized disease modelling which can be achieved by mimicking physiological conditions of specific diseases.

Dr. Ionescu Oana-Maria
Dr. Arn Mignon
Prof. Dr. Clement Higginbotham
Guest Editors

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• hydrogels
• polymers
• wound healing
• tissue engineering
• biomedical applications