Hydrogels: A Journey from Diapers to Gene Delivery

Abstract

Hydrogels are the biomaterials comprising network of natural or synthetic polymers capable of absorbing large amount of water. Hydrogels are "Smart Gels" or "Intelligent Gels" which can be made to respond to the various environmental conditions like temperature, pH, magnetic/electric field, ionic strength, inflammation, external stress etc. There are numerous potential applications of hydrogels in modern day life ranging from a diaper to gene delivery. This review succinctly describes the classification, properties and preparation methods along with numerous diverse applications of hydrogels like agricultural hydrogels, hydrogel for drug delivery, sensing, dental adhesives, wound healing and tissue regeneration, diet aid and gastric retention and in tissue engineering etc. Hydrogels can be regarded as highly valuable biomaterials for human-beings.

Solution properties of star polyelectrolytes having a moderate number of arms

“…1,2 Examples include hydrogels in diapers and gene delivery, 3 thickeners in food industries, 4 drug delivery, 5,6 water purification agents, 7 cosmetics, 8 etc. While the study of linear chain polyelectrolyte solutions has been the subject of numerous studies 9–14 and reviews, 15–18 star polyelectrolytes are much less well understood.…”

Influence of natural and synthetic crosslinking reagents on the structural and mechanical properties of chitosan-based hybrid hydrogels

“…In recent years, natural and synthetic hydrogels have been developed to meet specific human requirements in different fields, such as the agricultural, environmental, food and even medical industries (Chawla et al (2014)). The synthetic hydrogels that have frequently been used in the 5 aforementioned fields are poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) (Chawla et al (2014)).…”

“…The synthetic hydrogels that have frequently been used in the 5 aforementioned fields are poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) (Chawla et al (2014)). PVA has some particular advantages; among them, it has been reported to possess very low toxicity, hydrophilic behavior and a high elastic response.…”

Association Equilibrium for Cross-Associating Chains in a Good Solvent: Crowding and Other Nonideality Effects

“…[1][2][3] Extensive computer simulations of systems containing associative (sticky) chains have been devoted to viscoelastic and transport properties, kinetics of clustering and network formation, sol-gel transitions, swelling of gels and release of chemicals, see e.g. refs.…”

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Other analytical approximations for association equilibrium between the sticky chains have also been developed for self-associating chains, [13][14] cross-associating chains [15][16] as well as for systems where self-association may compete with cross-association. 17-20 3 Most of the simulation studies of associative chains are devoted to telechelic polymers with multiple participation of stickers in the cross-links. 4,[21][22][23][24] Previous work on chains with uniunivalent association includes Monte Carlo (MC) simulations where association is treated as formation of a new ("united") "atom", 25 MC simulation of chain association to stickers placed regularly on a lattice, 26 and MC simulation of telechelic chains with univalent terminal ligands forming complexes with trivalent metal ions.…”