Phenolics are readily accessible molecules with versatile reactivity and good biocompatibility—they have catalyzed research into phenolic-enabled nanotechnology thus providing a powerful toolkit for on-demand particle engineering in biomedicine.

Polysaccharide is an abundant and reproducible natural material that is biocompatible and biodegradable. Polysaccharide and its derivatives also possess distinctive properties such as hydrophilicity, mechanical stability, as well as tunable functionality. Polysaccharide‐based hydrogels can be constructed via the physical and/or chemical crosslinking of polysaccharide derivatives with different functional molecules, as porous network structures or nanofibrillar structures. This review discusses the biomedical applications of polysaccharide‐based hydrogels containing native polysaccharides, polysaccharide derivatives, and polysaccharide‐composite hydrogels. Recent works on the fabrication, physical properties, advanced engineering, biomedical applications of cellulose‐, chitosan‐, alginate‐, and starch‐based hydrogels are also elaborated. Such porous swelling scaffolds exhibit great advantages at the interface of a negative pressure system such as wound dressing. In addition, the authors also discuss and summarize the exemplary research works of these hydrogels in the applications of drug release, wound dressing, and tissue engineering. Finally, challenges and future perspectives about the development of polysaccharide‐based hydrogels are discussed.

Preventing relapses of Plasmodium vivax malaria through a radical cure depends on use of the 8-aminoquinoline primaquine, which is associated with safety and compliance issues. For future malaria eradication strategies, new, safer radical curative compounds that efficiently kill dormant liver stages (hypnozoites) will be essential. A new compound with potential radical cure activity was identified using a low-throughput assay of in vitro-cultured hypnozoite forms of Plasmodium cynomolgi (an excellent and accessible model for Plasmodium vivax). In this assay, primary rhesus hepatocytes are infected with P. cynomolgi sporozoites, and exoerythrocytic development is monitored in the presence of compounds. Liver stage cultures are fixed after 6 days and stained with anti-Hsp70 antibodies, and the relative proportions of small (hypnozoite) and large (schizont) forms relative to the untreated controls are determined. This assay was used to screen a series of 18 known antimalarials and 14 new non-8-aminoquinolines (preselected for blood and/or liver stage activity) in three-point 10-fold dilutions (0.1, 1, and 10 μM final concentrations). A novel compound, designated KAI407 showed an activity profile similar to that of primaquine (PQ), efficiently killing the earliest stages of the parasites that become either primary hepatic schizonts or hypnozoites (50% inhibitory concentration [IC50] for hypnozoites, KAI407, 0.69 μM, and PQ, 0.84 μM; for developing liver stages, KAI407, 0.64 μM, and PQ, 0.37 μM). When given as causal prophylaxis, a single oral dose of 100 mg/kg of body weight prevented blood stage parasitemia in mice. From these results, we conclude that KAI407 may represent a new compound class for P. vivax malaria prophylaxis and potentially a radical cure.