Hydrogels for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Abstract

Injectable hydrogels have become an incredibly prolific area of research in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, because of their high water content, mechanical similarity to natural tissues, and ease of surgical implantation, hydrogels are at the forefront of biomedical scaffold and drug carrier design. The aim of this review is to concisely summarise current state-of-the-art in natural and synthetic hydrogels with respect to their synthesis and fabrication, comparing and contrasting the many chemistries available for biomedical hydrogel generation using both biologic and synthetic base materials. We then discuss these hydrogels in the specific instance of several pertinent areas of TERM which have been specifically selected to demonstrate how this versatile class of materials can be modified to augment damage and disease of a seemingly limitless array of adult tissues.