Themed collection Soft Matter Recent Review Articles, 2024

Glycogen is a biomaterial nanoparticle composed of sugar. In this perspective, the opportunities of glycogen in nanomedicine going forward is discussed.

The kinetics of gel formation are known to influence the gel properties, however the structures present before gelation are often not discussed or explored. We explore different methods of changing or pre-processing these structures before gelation to change the properties of the final gel.

The goal of this review is to present enzymosomes as an innovative means for site-specific drug delivery.

We review recent advances in the theoretical, numerical, and experimental studies of critical Casimir forces in soft matter, with particular emphasis on their relevance for the structures of colloidal suspensions and on their dynamics.

A multitude of theoretical concepts devoted to photodeformation and alignment in azobenzene polymers are reviewed for their predictive abilities. The universality of the modern approach based on the orientation mechanism is demonstrated.

We highlight key results and outstanding questions emerging from recent literature, aiming to provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the latest advancements in understanding the conformation and dynamics of polyelectrolytes in dilute solutions.

With the rapid development of studies involving droplet microfluidics, drug delivery, cell detection, and microparticle synthesis, several models have been proposed to study the flow of fluid-filled bodies.

The mechanisms driving liquid metals and research progress on liquid metal actuators.

This review covers simple and complex coacervation in plant proteins: legume, oil seed, and cereal. We grouped the proteins by sources and properties and examined how processing affects phase behaviors.

Imidazole-based organic fluorophores with HLCT characteristics in excited states.

A comprehensive review of machine learning perspectives for the analysis and prediction of macroscopic and molecular properties of liquid crystals.

Research progress on the conformational properties of comb-like polymers.

The colon structure, factors significant to gut health, the fate of diet digesta entering the colon, and the functions of delivery systems in the colon.

Supramolecular gels, self-assembled from low-molecular-weight gelators (LMWGs), have a long history and a bright future.

Schematic of the set-up used for implementing IDIOM (interferometry digital imaging optical microscopy) protocols to visualize ultrathin films using reflected light microscopy and obtain nanotopography by converting pixelwise interference intensity into thickness.