title: Supramolecular biomaterials.
abstract: Polymers, ceramics and metals have historically dominated the application of materials in medicine. Yet rationally designed materials that exploit specific, directional, tunable and reversible non-covalent interactions offer unprecedented advantages: they enable modular and generalizable platforms with tunable mechanical, chemical and biological properties. Indeed, the reversible nature of supramolecular interactions gives rise to biomaterials that can sense and respond to physiological cues, or that mimic the structural and functional aspects of biological signalling. In this Review, we discuss the properties of several supramolecular biomaterials, as well as their applications in drug delivery, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and immunology. We envision that supramolecular biomaterials will contribute to the development of new therapies that combine highly functional materials with unmatched patient- and application-specific tailoring of both material and biological properties.
authors.affiliation: David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.|Department of Anesthesiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Webber
authors.affiliation: David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.|Department of Materials Science &Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Eric A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Appel
authors.affiliation: Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.|Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: E W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Meijer
authors.affiliation: David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.|Department of Anesthesiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.|Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.|Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.|Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Langer
mesh_terms: D000486:Allergy and Immunology; D000818:Animals; D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D044968:Regenerative Medicine; D023822:Tissue Engineering
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances