Intelligent gels – artificial soft tissue for the next era

Abstract

A substantial part of the human body is made of soft tissue which is a hydrogel consisting mainly of collagen and proteoglycan fiber networks. In the last decades, great effort has been made to create artificial tissues using synthetic and biological hydrogels. Examples are superior hydrogels which exhibit excellent mechanical properties like connective tissue and extremely low frictional coefficients like synovial cartilage. A tunable photonic crystal showing a variety of structural colors using nano‐dotted hydrogel is another unique example. Various types of gel actuators with muscle‐like motility have also been developed. In this article recent trends and achievements of intelligent gels with tissue‐like functions are described after a brief overview of the extracellular matrix. © 2021 Society of Industrial Chemistry.

Special Issue: Functional Polymers and Composites: From Synthesis to Applications (Dedicated to the 80th Anniversary of Professor George S. Georgiev)

“…This multidisciplinary collection of 1 review and 12 research papers includes works on fundamental, synthetic, and applied polymer chemistry – all on topics related to work carried out by Professor Georgiev and his collaborators. The issue takes off with the review by Sano, Kawamura, and Osada, 18 which summarizes work on intelligent and responsive hydrogels and their uses as synthetic substitutes of soft tissues. It is followed by a paper by Christov 19 describing the applications of the terminal model in multicomponent copolymerization reactions.…”