School of Chemistry, The University of New South Wales, NSW 2052, Australia.
Chem Asian J. 2011 Jan 3;6(1):30-42. doi: 10.1002/asia.201000592.
Natural and synthetic gel-like materials have featured heavily in the development of biomaterials for wound healing and other tissue-engineering purposes. More recently, molecular gels have been designed and tailored for the same purpose. When mixed with, or conjugated to therapeutic drugs or bioactive molecules, these materials hold great promise for treating/curing life-threatening and degenerative diseases, such as cancer, osteoarthritis, and neural injuries. This focus review explores the latest advances in this field and concentrates on self-assembled gels formed under aqueous conditions (i.e., self-assembled hydrogels), and critically compares their performance within different biomedical applications, including three-dimensional cell-culture studies, drug delivery, and tissue engineering. Although stability and toxicity issues still need to be addressed in more detail, it is clear from the work reviewed here that self-assembled gels have a bright future as novel biomaterials.
天然和合成的凝胶状材料在创伤愈合和其他组织工程目的的生物材料的发展中起着重要作用。最近，分子凝胶也被设计和定制用于相同的目的。当与治疗药物或生物活性分子混合或缀合时，这些材料在治疗/治愈危及生命和退行性疾病方面具有巨大的潜力，例如癌症、骨关节炎和神经损伤。本重点综述探讨了该领域的最新进展，并集中于在水相条件下形成的自组装凝胶（即自组装水凝胶），并在不同的生物医学应用中对其性能进行了批判性比较，包括三维细胞培养研究、药物输送和组织工程。尽管稳定性和毒性问题仍需要更详细地解决，但从这里综述的工作中可以清楚地看出，自组装凝胶作为新型生物材料具有光明的前景。
