title: Building biomedical materials using photochemical bond cleavage.
abstract: Light can be used as an external trigger to precisely determine where and when a process is initiated as well as how much of the process is being consumed. Phototriggers are a type of photoresponsive functional group that undergo an irreversible photolysis reaction by selectively breaking a chemical bond, enabling three fundamental functions: the photoactivation of fluorescent and bioactive molecules; the photocleavable degradation of macromolecular materials; and the photorelease of drugs, active groups, or surface charges from carriers and interfaces. With the expanded applications of light-controlled technology, particularly in living systems, new challenges and improvements of phototriggers are required to fulfill the demands for better sensitivity, faster kinetics, and more-demanding biomedical applications. Here, improvements to several conventional phototriggers are highlighted, and their notable, representative biomedical applications and their challenges are discussed.
authors: Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Institute of Fine Chemicals, East China University of Science and Technology, 130# Meilong Road, Shanghai, 200237, China.
authors: Chunyan
authors: C
authors: Bao
authors: Linyong
authors: L
authors: Zhu
authors: Qiuning
authors: Q
authors: Lin
authors: He
authors: H
authors: Tian
mesh_terms: D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D010782:Photolysis
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials
keywords: biomedical materials; photoactivation; photocleavage; photorelease; phototriggers