a Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering , University of Alberta , Edmonton , Canada.
b Department of Forensic Sciences, College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, School of Biological Sciences , University of Cape Coast , Cape Coast , Ghana.
Expert Opin Drug Deliv. 2018 Jan;15(1):77-91. doi: 10.1080/17425247.2017.1360865. Epub 2017 Aug 23.
Hydrogels are of special importance, owing to their high-water content and various applications in biomedical and bio-engineering research. Self-healing properties is a common phenomenon in living organisms. Their endowed property of being able to self-repair after physical/chemical/mechanical damage to fully or partially its original properties demonstrates their prospective therapeutic applications. Due to complicated preparation and selection of suitable materials, the application of many host-guest supramolecular polymeric hydrogels are so limited. Thus, the design and construction of self-repairing material are highly desirable for effectively increase in the lifetime of a functional material. However, recent advances in the field of materials science and bioengineering and nanotechnology have led to the design of biologically relevant self-healing hydrogels for therapeutic applications. This review focuses on the recent development of self-healing hydrogels for biomedical application.
The strategies of making self-healing hydrogels and their healing mechanisms are discussed. The significance of self-healing hydrogel for biomedical application is also highlighted in areas such as 3D/4D printing, cell/drug delivery, as well as soft actuators.
Materials that have the ability to self-repair damage and regain the desired mechanical properties, have been found to be excellent candidate materials for a range of biomedical uses especially if their unique characteristics are similar to that of soft-tissues. Self-healing hydrogels have been synthesized and shown to exhibit similar characteristics as human tissues, however, significant improvement is required in the fabrication process from inexpensive and nontoxic/non-hazardous materials and techniques, and, in addition, further fine-tuning of the self-healing properties are needed for specific biomedical uses.
水凝胶因其高含水量和在生物医学和生物工程研究中的各种应用而具有特殊意义。自修复特性是生物体中常见的现象。它们具有在受到物理/化学/机械损伤后能够自行修复，完全或部分恢复其原始特性的能力，这展示了它们在治疗中的潜在应用。由于复杂的制备和合适材料的选择，许多主体-客体超分子聚合物水凝胶的应用受到限制。因此，设计和构建自修复材料对于有效增加功能材料的寿命是非常理想的。然而，材料科学、生物工程和纳米技术领域的最新进展导致了用于治疗应用的具有生物相关性的自修复水凝胶的设计。本文综述了用于生物医学应用的自修复水凝胶的最新进展。
讨论了制备自修复水凝胶的策略及其修复机制。还强调了自修复水凝胶在 3D/4D 打印、细胞/药物输送以及软驱动器等生物医学应用领域的重要性。
具有自我修复损伤和恢复所需机械性能的能力的材料已被发现是一系列生物医学用途的优秀候选材料，特别是如果它们的独特特性类似于软组织。已经合成了自修复水凝胶，并显示出与人体组织相似的特性，然而，需要从廉价、无毒/无危险的材料和技术中改进制造工艺，此外，还需要进一步调整自修复特性，以满足特定的生物医学用途。
