Chitosan based hydrogels and their applications for drug delivery in wound dressings: A review

A concise review of current lignin production, applications, products and their environmental impact

Recent advances in biomaterials for 3D scaffolds: A review.

Routes of drug administration and the corresponding physicochemical characteristics of a given route play significant roles in therapeutic efficacy and short term/long term biological effects. Each delivery method has favorable aspects and limitations, each requiring a specific delivery vehicles design. Among various routes, oral delivery has been recognized as the most attractive method, mainly due to its potential for solid formulations with long shelf life, sustained delivery, ease of administration and intensified immune response. At the same time, a few challenges exist in oral delivery, which have been the main research focus in the field in the past few years. The present work concisely reviews different administration routes as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each method, highlighting why oral delivery is currently the most promising approach. Subsequently, the present work discusses the main obstacles for oral systems and explains the most recent solutions proposed to deal with each issue.

Challenges and Recent Progress in Oral Drug Delivery Systems for Biopharmaceuticals.

3D printing alias additive manufacturing can transform 3D virtual models created by computer-aided design (CAD) into physical 3D objects in a layer-by-layer manner dispensing with conventional molding or machining. Since the incipiency, significant advancements have been achieved in understanding the process of 3D printing and the relationship of component, structure, property and application of the created objects. Because hydrogels are one of the most feasible classes of ink materials for 3D printing and this field has been rapidly advancing, this Review focuses on hydrogel designs and development of advanced hydrogel-based biomaterial inks and bioinks for 3D printing. It covers 3D printing techniques including laser printing (stereolithography, two-photon polymerization), extrusion printing (3D plotting, direct ink writing), inkjet printing, 3D bioprinting, 4D printing and 4D bioprinting. It provides a comprehensive overview and discussion of the tailorability of material, mechanical, physical, chemical and biological properties of hydrogels to enable advanced hydrogel designs for 3D printing. The range of hydrogel-forming polymers covered encompasses biopolymers, synthetic polymers, polymer blends, nanocomposites, functional polymers, and cell-laden systems. The representative biomedical applications selected demonstrate how hydrogel-based 3D printing is being exploited in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, cancer research, in vitro disease modeling, high-throughput drug screening, surgical preparation, soft robotics and flexible wearable electronics. Incomparable by thermoplastics, thermosets, ceramics and metals, hydrogel-based 3D printing is playing a pivotal role in the design and creation of advanced functional (bio)systems in a customizable way. An outlook on future directions of hydrogel-based 3D printing is presented.

Chengkai. Liao

Papers

Hydrogels for biomedical applications.