Gels in Biomedical Applications: An Overview on Wound Healing and Tissue Engineering

Biopolymer hydrogels present diverse applications in medicine due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability and low immunogenicity. The specific features related to swelling, holding a large amount of water while maintaining the structure, in addition to the ease of taking different shapes, make them the selected biomaterials as component for diverse bio-applications: contact lenses, injectable or implantable drug delivery devices and as platforms intended for wound healing and tissue engineering. In general, the restriction associated to the use of hydrogels in biomedicine lies in the poor mechanical properties associated to the natural biopolymers. This problem can be solved by the use of other materials during the synthesis procedure. In this chapter, general synthesis methodologies and latest innovations in terms of gelatin, collagen and hyaluronic acid hydrogels for wound care and tissue engineering are reviewed. The selection of the biopolymers is based on their suitable features for biomedical applications. The focusing of specific clinical challenges for wound healing and tissue engineering can prove to be beneficial for rapid development in science and marketing. This implies considering the current increasing market associated to hydrogel employment for wound care and treatment as well as the requirement to develop concise clinical hydrogels implementation on the replacement of diverse tissue and organs.

Keywords: Biopolymers, Collagen, Gelatin, Gels, Hyaluronic acid, Synthesis and characterization, Tissue Engineering, Wound healing.