Biodegradable 'intelligent' materials in response to chemical stimuli for biomedical applications.
BACKGROUND
Biodegradable stimuli-responsive materials, which exhibit large and sharp physical-chemical changes in response to small physical or chemical stimuli, are attracting increasing interests because of their potential applications in biomedical fields, such as transient implants, drug delivery carriers, and tissue engineering scaffolds. Our previous review (see page 493 of issue 4) summarized those biodegradable 'intelligent' materials that respond to physical stimuli, such as temperature, ultrasound, and magnetic field. Biodegradable 'intelligent' materials that could respond to chemical stimuli, such as pH and specific molecules, have also been studied intensively and significant progress in this field has been achieved. As a single stimulus-responsive property would limit practical application, multi-stimuli-responsive materials are receiving increasing interest and considerable attention.


OBJECTIVE
This review summarizes the development of biodegradable 'intelligent' materials in response to chemical stimuli and to dual stimuli; their potential biomedical applications are also introduced. A detailed analysis of publications and patents on such materials in recent years is presented.


CONCLUSIONS
Most of biodegradable stimuli-responsive materials are currently still at a developmental research stage. Further work is required to improve the responsive properties between the materials and the biological environments, so that the clinical applicability of such devices could be successful. We hope that our review will be helpful in the future development of new stimuli-responsive biodegradable polymers or polymeric systems that can be used reliably in real-life applications.
Sichuan University, School of Chemical Engineering, Chengdu, Sichuan 610065, China.
Xiao-Jie
XJ
Ju
Rui
R
Xie
Lihua
L
Yang
Liang-Yin
LY
Chu
D020341:Absorbable Implants; D000818:Animals; D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D010330:Patents as Topic; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods
D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D011108:Polymers