Nanomedicine, Biofabrication, Tissue Engineering and Much More - Advanced Healthcare Materials Welcomes 2019.

Abstract

2018 has been a very successful year for Advanced Healthcare Materials. While completing its 7th year of publication, we have published more articles than ever before, have received record submissions, and achieved an Impact Factor increase to 5.609. The most important highlights of 2018 were our three Special issues at the frontiers of biomaterials research: Just recently we published a Special issue on “Nanomedicine in China”, guest edited by Yuliang Zhao from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China, Beijing (Vol 7, issue 20, October 2018). This issue discusses the most interesting topics in the field including multimodality imaging, targeted delivery, antibacterial nanomaterials, light-responsive phototherapy, cancer diagnosis, protein nanotherapeutics, and nanomaterials safety issues. Certainly, this issue features our favorite cover this year. In July another Special issue was dedicated to nanomedicine (Vol 7, issue 13, July 2018), but with a focus on “Combatting Infections with Nanomedicine”, which was edited by Liangfang Zhang, the University of California, La Jolla, USA. The issue covered graphene materials and carbon nanotubes, metal nanoparticles to treat bacterial diseases and parasitic worms, as well as antibacterial surfaces, diagnostic tools and vaccines. Early in the year (Vol 7, issue 2, January 2018), we covered “Microphysiological Analytic Platforms (MAPs): Precision Organs on Chip”, also known as organs on chip, guest edited by Luke Lee from the University of California, Berkeley, USA. As this cover shows, organs in microfluidics systems are now available for a number of organs, as exemplified by articles on neurodegenerative disorders, for women's health applications, pancreas, liver and more, and can be used to model diseases for drug development and discovery. The first issue in 2019 presents Review Articles and Progress Reports on important topics in the biomaterials field, as well as a couple of Full Papers. Certainly, biofabrication continues to be one of the most popular topics. One Review Article by Malcolm Xing et al. focusses on “layer-by-layer self-assembly for cell encapsulation” (10.1002/adhm.201800939) and two Full Papers feature 4D printing of hydrogel composites for temporal cellular and mineralized patterns (10.1002/adhm.201800788), and architectural design of 3D printed scaffolds for bone regeneration (10.1002/adhm.201801353). This issue also includes three comprehensive review-type articles on regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, one of the all-time favorite topics covered by Advanced Healthcare Materials. The Review Article by Robert E. Guldberg et al. presents growth factors, biomaterials and delivery systems in tissue engineering (10.1002/adhm.201801000). F. Philipp Seib et al. take a thorough look at silk and its biomedical use in their Progress Report (10.1002/adhm.201800465). A growing number of submissions to the journal are dealing with topics related to immune therapy and biomaterial interactions with immune cells and organs. This is covered by two Full Papers on an anti-tumor therapy consisting of a tumor lysate loaded nano-vaccine and an immune checkpoint antagonist (10.1002/adhm.201800837), as well as “Simulating Inflammation in a Wound Microenvironment using a Dermal Wound-on-Chip Model” (10.1002/adhm.201801307). These timely articles are complemented by a Review Article from Carlos Mas-Moruno that provides a thorough overview of surface modification strategies promoting osteointegration while inhibiting bacterial infection (10.1002/adhm.201801103). Furthermore, Review Articles by Mohammad-Ali Shahbazi et al. on the biomedical applications of MXene nanosheets (10.1002/adhm.201801137) and Yao Lu et al. on fabrication techniques of paper microfluidics and their cell-based applications (10.1002/adhm.201801084) are some of the other exciting papers included in this issue. Looking back, we are happy to see that 2018 has been a great year for Advanced Healthcare Materials as it has been a platform for the dissemination of cutting-edge research from around the globe. We are thankful to our authors for choosing Advanced Healthcare Materials to publish their research, to our reviewers for their support in ensuring the rigorous peer-review process each manuscript goes through and to our Editorial Advisory Board for offering their expertise whenever needed. We are looking forward to working together to advance our role in putting forward the best biomaterials research in 2019.