Themed collection Journal of Materials Chemistry B Recent Review Articles

The development of innovative nanomedicine has raised the standards over the last few decades.

Representative strategies for designing smart drug delivery systems by using functional peptides in the past few years are highlighted in this review.

Wettable–nonwettable micropatterns have received tremendous attention due to their unique functionalities. Their emerging applications have been highlighted in this review.

Phospholipid-mimicking amphiphilic polymers show nonendocytic internalization by membrane fusion.

Various nanomaterials can mimic the activities of nucleases for hydrolytic and oxidative DNA cleavage on different sites allowing interesting biomedical and bioanalytical applications.

Triggering specific chemical reactions in the disease microenvironment can produce species for disease treatment that have high theranostic performance and low side effects on healthy cells/tissues.

Bioactive glasses are used to regenerate bone, and when developing new compositions, in vitro cell culture studies are key. As test parameters vary widely, this review provides an overview, helping researchers to select the appropriate ones.

This review describes the very recent bioapplications of nanodiamonds combining nanoparticles and diamond features, underlining their multiple roles in theranostics.

Inflammation is ubiquitous in the body, and uncontrolled inflammation often contributes to various diseases.

Photosensitizers are photosensitive molecules utilized in clinical and non-clinical applications by taking advantage of light-mediated reactive oxygen generation, which triggers local and systemic cellular toxicity.

Hydrogel-based scaffold design approaches for the treatment of spinal cord injuries.

The design and synthesis of pH-responsive antibacterial nanomaterials and their applications in anti-infective therapy.

This review presents recently developed supramolecular ensembles modified by near-infrared dyes. We discussed the construction of these near-infrared dyes-based ensembles and their biological application.

The metal-containing nanomaterials with inherent physichemical properties are potential agents for ferroptotic cancer therapy.

We discuss the recent progress in the development of scaffold-free techniques for the fabrication of cell spheroids and their biomedical applications.

Various cellulosic derivatives ranging from nanoparticles to macromolecular compounds were studied as biodegradable and renewable dispersants and flocculants.

Embedded 3D printing is an additive manufacturing method based on a material extrusion strategy.

A timeline for C, Si, Ge NDs, showing the development of synthesis, functionalization, bioimaging, and therapy.

We discuss designing efficient NIR-II-emitting lanthanide NPs and summarize their recent progress in bioimaging, therapy, and biosensing, as well as their limitations and future opportunities.

Nanocomposites have attracted great attention in tissue repair as carriers for bioactive molecule delivery due to their biochemical and nanostructural similarity to that of physiological tissues, and controlled delivery of bioactive molecules.

A timely and comprehensive account of electroactive biomaterials promoting bone regeneration is provided by reviewing their physicochemical and biological properties.

This review summarizes and discusses recent research progress in chemical and physical chitosan hydrogels for drug delivery.

With the integrated evaluation of the scaffold profile in the living systems, the decellularized animal, plant, and fungal scaffolds will become essential instruments for safe and controllable biomedical applications.

Decellularized materials (DMs) are attracting more and more attention in tissue engineering because of their many unique advantages, and they could be further improved in some aspects through various means.

2D material-based nanozymes exhibited high potential for applications in biosensors and immunoassays.

In this review, we have spotlighted various combinations of bioinks to optimize the biofabrication of 3D bone constructs.

A comprehensive review on the biosafety of mesoporous silica nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

Nano-delivery helps to improve the solubility, stability, and efficacy of essential phytochemicals for the inhibition of bacterial resistance.

Natural polysaccharides as sustainable polymers are rich sources with good biological safety and various biological functions, which are important research topics in the fields of food and medicine.

Microenvironment-related parameters like viscosity, polarity, and pH play important roles in controlling the physical or chemical behaviors of local molecules, which determine the physical or chemical behaviors of surrounding molecules.

This review discusses the current status and future potential of biomass-derived nanocarbons for a wide range of biomedical/environmental applications, including bioimaging, microbial inactivation, wound care, and microbial electrochemical systems.

Polymeric nano-carriers for on-demand delivery of genes via specific responses to stimuli.

Infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria have caused huge economic loss and numerous deaths over the past decades.

Dynamic covalent polymers have revealed strong potential in gene delivery, thanks to their versatile self-assembly, adaptive and responsive behaviors.

The design and applications of DNAzyme–gold nanoparticle-based probes in biosensing and bioimaging are summarized here.

The design of inorganic scaffolds able to instruct the immune system, eliciting adequate feedback by tuning specific material properties, has become an emerging field of research.

Nanomaterials can offer customized tools for prophylactic and therapeutic purposes that bring new solutions in different stages of malaria infection.

Carbon nanotubes can enhance the functionality of orthopedic applications.

A subclass of hydrogels which are prepared from supramolecular interactions can realized enhanced functionality, especially in the context of biomedical applications, upon the inclusion of temperature-responsive properties.

The development and progress of antimicrobial polypeptides and saccharide–polypeptide conjugates in regards to their structural design, biological functions and antimicrobial mechanism.

Photoisomerization and red-shifted photoswitching make azobenzene superior for exploring the cell-material interactions and designing tissue-engineering scaffolds.

The review provides an overview on protein-stabilized gold nanoclusters which offer intriguing applications for the use as theranostics, as diagnostics and as biosensors.

This review provides an overview of stimuli-responsive functional materials and their applications in soft robotics.

Nitrogen-doped carbon dots have emerged as a biocompatible functional carbon nanomaterial for a variety of biomedical applications such as optical imaging, photoacoustic imaging, drug delivery, photothermal therapy, and photodynamic therapy.

Nanosystems have shown encouraging outcomes and substantial progress in the areas of drug delivery and biomedical applications.

Oral cancer is a common malignant life-threatening tumor.

Nanomaterials with excellent ROS-scavenging ability and biodistribution are considered as promising candidates in alleviating oxidative stress and restoring redox balance in CNS diseases, further facilitating the function recovery of the CNS.

Hydrogels have been widely used in wound healing treatment over the past decade.

We review the range of biomolecules used across dental biomaterials to spur the design and implementation of bioinspired multifunctional materials.

Liquid-phase electron microscopy, a new method for real-time nanoscopic imaging in liquid, makes it possible to study cells or biomolecules with a singular combination of spatial and temporal resolution. We review the state of the art in biological research in this growing and promising field.

Graphical representation of local and systemic drug delivery systems.

Graphene oxide (GO) has emerged as a polynomially functional carbon nanomaterial with rational applications in diverse fields such as biomedical engineering, electrocatalysis, biosensing, energy conversion, and storage devices.

3D-Bioprinting has seen a rapid expansion in the last few years, with an increasing number of reported bioinks, amongst which, alginate is an ideal ingredient due to its biocompatibility and ease of gelation.

This review covers the current state-of-the-art in the development of liquid embolics for therapeutic embolisation.

Supramolecular block copolymers with a dynamically reversible nature and hierarchical microphase-separated structures can greatly enrich the library of pharmaceutical carriers and outline future research directions for biological applications.

The recent advances of polyoxometalate clusters in terms of near infrared photothermal properties for targeted tumor therapy have been summarized while the combined applications with various bio-imaging techniques and chemotherapies are reviewed.

The tissue engineering approach for repairing osteochondral (OC) defects involves the fabrication of a biological tissue scaffold that mimics the physiological properties of natural OC tissue (e.g., the gradient transition between the cartilage surface and the subchondral bone).

Near infrared (NIR)-excitable and NIR-emitting probes have fuelled advances in biomedical applications owing to their power in enabling deep tissue imaging, offering high image contrast and reducing phototoxicity.

This review highlights recent advances in bio-orthogonal and dynamic hydrogels crosslinked by irreversible click chemistry, enzymatic reactions, and covalent-adaptable network.

This review focusses on unique material modification and signal amplification strategies reported in developing photoelectrochemical biosensors with utmost sensitivity and selectivity.

We review the recent progress of vertical nanowire (VNW) array-based biosensors for the effective collection of biomedical information at the molecular level, extracellular level, and intracellular level.

In this review article, we present the state-of-the-art approaches and recent advancements in the engineering of scaffold-free cardiac microtissues for myocardial repair.

Exosomes have outstanding advantages as drug delivery carriers in the treatment of various diseases.

This review provides insights on enzyme powered motors using fuels present in biological environments for biomedical applications.

Flexible electrochemical biosensors are studied hugely because of tremendous advantages including the fast response, high sensitivity, inherent miniaturization, convenient operation, and portability which are suitable for wearable biosensors.

Natural and modified nanostructured clay minerals as drug carriers and support matrices for drug delivery, cancer therapy, gene therapy, and tissue engineering.

The unique properties of stimuli-responsive polymers make them valuable for myriad applications, their use for biosensing and molecular diagnostics is reviewed here.

Wound healing microphysiological systems have been engineered with synthetic and natural materials and techniques such as bioprinting or viscous finger patterning. Model designs focus on particular phases of wound healing or the recapitulation of micro-anatomies.

The Prussian blue (PB) based nanostructure is a mixed-valence coordination network with excellent biosafety, remarkable photothermal effect and multiple enzyme-mimicking behaviours.

Owing to fascinating properties and biodegradability, opportunities and challenges of emerging black phosphorus (BP) and BP analogs (BPAs) in biomedical applications have been coexisted to study.