Comprehensive overview of biomedical applications of hydrogels

Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymeric materials that maintain a distinct three-dimensional structure. Their high water content lets them mimic living body tissues. Because of their features such as biocompatibility, adaptiveness, temperature resistance and sensitivity, they arise as biomaterials for clinical needs. In this context, they are being used as scaffolds for tissue engineering, substitutes of damaged human tissues, carriers for drug delivery, and so on. These diverse applications require development of specific and often multifunctional systems. There has been great progress over the years not only in terms of materials design and synthesis, but also in terms of methods used to process these materials.

The book provides an overview of the development and applications of clinically relevant hydrogels, used particularly in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and drug delivery. It approaches the topic from chemistry, materials science, biology, medicine, nanotechnology, and bioengineering points of view. The book first reviews proteins and polysaccharides that mimic extracellular matrix. This is followed by the discussion of generation and applications of supramolecular hydrogels. The final part of the book covers design and functions of cell encapsulation systems.