Polysaccharide-Fibrous Clay Bionanocomposites and their Applications

Natural polymers, or biopolymers, are widely utilized in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. These polymers, derived from proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids, serve as biomaterials for scaffolds, drug delivery systems, and bioactive materials that mimic the extracellular matrix. They offer advantages such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, versatility, and integration with gene therapy. Collagen, gelatin, chitosan, hyaluronic acid, fibrin, and alginate are commonly used natural polymers in regenerative medicine. They promote cell growth, tissue formation, wound healing, and tissue regeneration. Natural polymers also play a crucial role in controlled drug and gene delivery systems, providing safe and effective alternatives to synthetic polymers. Moreover, they contribute to developing bioactive and bio-functional materials, including hydrogels, which mimic natural biological processes and have applications in tissue engineering, drug delivery, and wound healing. Overall, natural polymers hold great promise for advancing regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. However, several challenges impede the widespread adoption and utilization of natural polymers in regenerative medicine. These challenges include variations in batch-to-batch composition, limited mechanical strength, rapid degradation rates, immunogenicity concerns, and difficulties achieving precise control over their properties. Overcoming these challenges necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the structure-function relationships of natural polymers and the development of innovative processing techniques to enhance their mechanical properties and stability. The future of natural polymers in regenerative medicine holds immense potential. Ongoing research efforts focus on refining their properties, tailoring their degradation rates, and integrating them with advanced technologies like 3D bioprinting and nanotechnology. By leveraging these advancements, natural polymers can be further optimized for specific tissue engineering applications, enabling the creation of patient-specific scaffolds, enhanced wound healing materials, and personalized drug delivery systems. Additionally, harnessing the innate bioactivity of natural polymers and their interactions with cells and tissues opens new avenues for the development of bioactive materials that promote tissue regeneration and healing.

The fields of vascular biology and vascular medicine are so intertwined that advances in one predict, explain, or are required for progress in the other. Bypass grafting, which once served as a “bailout” procedure,1 2 is now performed more than 600 000 times annually in the United States. In major part, this increase can be attributed to a surge in understanding of the vascular response to injury. At the same time, the science of vascular biology has been primarily stimulated by the clinical imperative to combat complications that ensue from vascular interventions.3 Thus, when a novel vascular biological finding or cardiovascular medical/surgical technique is presented, we are required to ask the 2-fold question: what have we learned about the biology of the blood vessel, and how might this knowledge be used to enhance clinical perspective and treatment? The innovative method of engineering arterial conduits presented by Campbell et al4 in this issue of Circulation Research presents us with just such a challenge, and I will attempt to deal with the biological and clinical ramifications of this work. Although routinely applied and ubiquitously used, vascular grafting is not without significant constraints and complications.3 Arterial conduits are in limited supply and restricted dimensions. Venous conduits are more abundant but lack vasomotor tone and are prone to thrombotic and hyperplastic occlusion and, less frequently, infection. Veins and arteries must be harvested from sites that leave wounds that can break down or become infected. Synthetic materials do not fare well in small-bore vascular beds and are excessively thrombotic. Graft passivation has been attempted to minimize material-blood interaction by surface modification with coatings of proteins,5 polymer materials, or cells.6 7 Although somewhat successful in limiting thrombosis and hyperplasia, such linings do not provide vascular responsiveness or other biochemical secretory …

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are nanoscale particles of silver with dimensions typically ranging from 1 to 100 nanometers. They possess unique physical, chemical, and optical properties that make them useful in various fields. Here are some topics related to silver nanoparticles [1]. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have emerged as promising candidates in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Their unique properties, including antimicrobial activity, excellent biocompatibility, and tunable surface chemistry, make them attractive for applications in promoting tissue regeneration and wound healing. This abstract aims to provide an overview of the utilization of silver nanoparticles in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, focusing on their role in scaffold fabrication, drug delivery systems, and wound dressings. In tissue engineering, scaffolds play a crucial role in providing structural support and guiding cell growth [2]. Silver nanoparticles can be incorporated into scaffold materials to enhance their antimicrobial properties, thereby reducing the risk of infection during tissue regeneration. Moreover, the inherent antibacterial activity of AgNPs can help control the colonization of pathogenic microorganisms, ensuring a sterile environment conducive to tissue healing. Furthermore, silver nanoparticles have been explored for their potential in drug delivery systems within the context of tissue engineering. AgNPs can serve as carriers for therapeutic agents, such as growth factors and drugs, due to their high surface area and ability to encapsulate bioactive molecules. This enables targeted and sustained release of therapeutic compounds, facilitating localized tissue regeneration and minimizing systemic side effects. In the field of wound dressings, silver nanoparticles have garnered significant attention. Their antimicrobial properties make them effective in preventing infections in chronic and acute wounds. AgNPs can be incorporated into dressings, hydrogels, or nanofiber matrices, providing a protective barrier against microbial colonization while promoting wound healing. Additionally, silver nanoparticles exhibit anti-inflammatory effects, which can contribute to a more favourable wound healing environment. silver nanoparticles hold great promise in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications [3]. Their antimicrobial activity, biocompatibility, and versatile surface chemistry make them valuable tools for scaffold fabrication, drug delivery systems, and wound dressings. Continued research and development in this field are expected to drive further advancements, enabling the realization of innovative strategies for tissue regeneration and promoting the healing of complex wounds.

What's in a Name?

Drug delivery systems (DDS) have been the focus of intense research for several decades. Many approaches and strategies have been employed over the years, further expanding this field. For example, the advancements towards targeted drug delivery (TDD) enabled the use of DDS for diagnostic purposes. In addition, DDS research has provided the foundation for tissue engineering and theranostic systems (therapeutic systems with diagnostic properties). Drug delivery research has yielded many successes over the years with a significant amount of therapeutic and diagnostic products out in the market. Nevertheless, many challenges still remain. Herein, in this special edition, we asked various experts to review recent advancements in their field of expertise and report their latest findings. The special edition is well balanced and is comprised of 60% reviews and 40% research articles. One may find up-to-date reviews on advancements made in biomaterials, noninvasive drug delivery, drug conjugations, biosensors, diagnostics, implantable and ingestible devices, nanomaterials, cancer treatment, and endosome-derived vesicles. Additionally, research articles are provided, describing advanced new designs of microneedles (MNs), approaches to enhance tissue engineering capabilities, biomaterials, and DDS. The global market of protein- and nucleotide- based pharmaceutics accounted for $643 million in 2016, and is anticipated to reach over $8000 million by 2028. However, the use of these therapeutics is hindered by issues of immunogenicity, high molecular weight, fast renal clearance, and enzymatic degradation. For these reasons, to date, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are administered only via injection. Considering that, Angsantikul et al. propose the use of ionic liquid and eutectic solvent for the oral delivery of mAbs (article number 2002912). Their system reduced the mucosal viscosity and enhanced the paracellular transport of TNFα antibody in vitro. Additionally, Rondon and colleagues review the latest advancements in polymer chemistry and protein engineering in order to overcome part of these limitations (article number 2101633). Another approach to overcome these limitations is by using antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Accordingly, Firer and Luboshits review the recent developments employed in ADCs for the treatment of hematological malignancies (article number 2100032). They focus on the important link between the biology of the ADC and clinical efficacy, highlighting newer developments that strengthen this link to provide long-term clinical benefits. One of the most important purposes of drug delivery is achieving TDD. Dacoba and colleagues provide an overview on the concepts of passive and active targeting while exploring current venues for nanotechnology to solve the problems associated with drug delivery (article number 2009860). TDD is especially important for cancer therapy since killing cancerous cells is quite facile, but killing only cancerous cells is extremely challenging. Fu et al. review the latest strategies employed to overcome the barriers of chimeric antigen receptor T cells therapy in solid tumors (article number 2009489). Brain therapy is another challenging route for drug delivery requiring specific TDD system. To this end, Buaron et al. have developed a novel pectic galactan-based gene therapy approach that targets reactive gliosis via specific carbohydrate interaction between galactan and Gal-3 (article number 2100643). Their biocompatible pectin galatcan-plasmid DNA complexes were selectively transfected to glial cells in cortical lesions. Moreover, Avital et al. report their interesting application for nanosized DDS—foliar delivery of siRNA for treating grapevine leafroll associated virus-3 (GLRaV-3) infection that causes major economic losses (article number 2101003). By exploiting a lipid-modified polyethylenimine carrier, they show that a single dose can knock down GLRaV-3 titer, and multiple doses keeps the viral titer at baseline, which triggers the recovery of the vine and berries. Another important aspect of drug delivery research is the development of noninvasive drug administration routes. Rahamim and Azagury review the origins of biomimetic, bioinspired, and bioengineered noninvasive DDS and achievements made in the last decade (article number 2102033). Additionally, Zhang et al. review advances in DDS that access the ear through the tympanic membrane (article number 2008701). Transdermal drug delivery is one of the most used noninvasive drug delivery routes. An exciting approach for transdermal drug delivery is microneedles (MNs). Puigmal and colleagues propose applying MNs array to treat severe burns that simultaneously sample immune cells in the interstitial fluid to diagnose the response (article number 2100128). Their MNs design enables the local delivery of pharmaceutics—the chemokine CCL22 and the cytokine IL-2—thus increasing local immuno-suppression. They found that the immune cell population in the allograft and MN were similar so they can be harvested from the MN for downstream analysis. Moreover, Li et al. have also proposed an improved MNs design where they use a biphasic dissolvable MN patch with water-insoluble backing in order to tackle insufficient drug delivery with MN (article number 2103359). Their new design enables a drug delivery efficiency of >90% into the skin within 5 min. Biomaterials are the building blocks of drug delivery, diagnostics, and tissue engineering research. Therefore, there is an ever-growing need for novel biomaterials with new functionalities and improved properties. To this end, Arun et al. present an exclusive coverage of biocompatible injectable pasty or liquid polymers without the use of any solvent for drug delivery and regenerative medicine applications (article number 2010284). Moreover, Khait et al. review novel biomaterial-based strategies used to modulate the immune response post ischemic stroke while providing their perspective on the potential clinical translation of these therapies (article number 2010674). Additionally, Redenski et al. developed a new composite tissue made of soft-tissue matrices and decellularized bone for bone defect repair (article number 2008687). The use of their novel tissue composite supported a long-term bone defect repair, as well as muscle defect bridging. These aforementioned applications and additional applications use cell-based therapeutics. The major obstacles of cell-based therapeutics are their low yields (i.e., difficult to scale-up), insufficient drug loading, and inconsistencies. For this reason, Guo et al. have developed a scaled-up and facile magnetic-based extrusion method for preparing endosome-derived vesicles (article number 2008326). An additional application of diagnostics and therapeutics is implantable and ingestible devices. In this special edition, Yang and colleagues provide an up-to-date review on the state-of-the-art of powering technologies for implantable and ingestible electronics—one of the greatest challenges for ingestible devices (article number 2009289). Welch et al. have focused their review on the complex hierarchical nano-structures and nano-materials used in biosensors and diagnostic technologies (article number 2104126). Additionally, they discuss their unique advantages and clinical applications while proposing future directions. In this special edition Nakonechny and Nisnevitch provide an up-to-date review focused on ultrasound applications used to combat infections caused by microorganisms, and to promote the local release of antimicrobial drugs from liposomes and medical implants (article number 2011042). Precise and well-controlled scaffolds are highly desired for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine purposes. For example, Dubay et al. review the recent achievements of single-cell microgels and their potential alternatives, which are used when single cell resolution is needed, for example—modular bio-inks and 3D cellular microenvironments (article number 2009946). Another challenge for implantable devices is a foreign body response (FBR). Kutner et al. review the recent advantageous technologies used to overcome the FBR effect via surface modifications and localized DDS (article number 2010929). One such surface modification is reported by Israeli et al. who developed a general and versatile technology to engineer light-responsive protein-based biomaterials (article number 2011276). These novel biomaterials—consist of azobenzene containing elastin-like polypeptides—are capable of forming self-assembled nanostructures and exhibit a reversible, light-mediated phase transition, with up to a 12 °C difference in the transition temperature. We are certain that this assemblage of reviews and research papers on the use of DDS for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes is of high interest for anyone working in this field. It provides up-to-date reviews on state-of-the-art topics and research papers with promising results to further propel drug delivery research. Understanding what has been done in the past, while learning of new approaches and techniques, is crucial for any scholar who wishes to advance their personal research. Joseph Kost D.Sc. is a University Distinguished Professor, he holds The Abraham and Bessie Zacks Chair in Biomedical Engineering and was the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). He is a member of AIMBE, NAE, CRS, and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. His research interests are in the fields of biomedical engineering, biomaterials science, controlled drug delivery, gene therapy, and ultrasound. Edith Mathiowitz is a full Professor of Medical Science and Engineering at Brown University, Department of Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. She Is an AIMBE, CRS, and NAI fellow member. She founded and directed the ABC/Biotechnology Graduate Program at Brown. Her interdisciplinary research is focused on developing smart oral bioadhesive delivery systems and novel insights in polymer morphology. Her laboratory serves as an incubator for several start-up companies such as Spherics, Perosphere, and Therapyx. Aharon (Roni) Azagury is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biotechnology Engineering in Ariel University. He received his PhD in chemical engineering from BGU. He is a member of the CRS, ICRS, and NAI societies. His current research focuses on developing novel noninvasive biomimetic and bioinspired drug delivery systems.

Regardless of the type of institution that we call home (academe, institute, foundation, company, or federal agency), most of us are confronted with challenges in conducting our own work and/or in supervising the work of others, challenges that can include: conceiving research programs and projects; planning and evaluating the results of experiments; establishing and maintaining collaborations, including those necessary for clinical investigation; managing budgets and acquiring funding; preparing papers for publication and presentation; and teaching and mentoring students, postdoctoral fellows, and young investigators. We may find ourselves exhausted in performing just a few of these tasks for a group of 10 or 20 people, or even for fewer staff. But imagine that you had all of these and attendant responsibilities for 170 people, more than half of which had doctoral degrees. Moreover, imagine that an entire nation's future economic well-being, as well as its advances in healthcare, could potentially be impacted by the enterprise that you direct. This is all a lot to imagine, but the above, in effect, are answers to the question, 'What does Jackie Ying do?' She is the founding Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research) in Singapore [1], which has just celebrated its tenth anniversary. What kind of person has the knowledge and skill set to construct such an institute from the ground up, and then to inspire and motivate its personnel to remain at the leading edge of developments in biomedical materials and other fields? (And don't you wonder how you would have done it, if you were given the charge?) This is the third of a series of interviews with leaders in the biomedical materials field [2–4].

Hydrogels: Classifications, fundamental properties, applications, and scopes in recent advances in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine – A comprehensive review

Cancer is the leading cause of death all over the world and chemotherapy is an important approach to fight cancer, however, there are many obstacles against successful cancer chemotherapy such as development of multidrug resistance, poor solubility of chemotherapeutic agents and adverse side effects to healthy tissues. An important strategy to overcome these obstacles, is the use of nanotechnology. In recent years, natural polymers such as cellulose and its nanoform structure, nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), have attracted the interest of researchers in the field of nanotechnology and specially drug delivery systems, due to biocompatibility and biodegradability of NCC. Cellulose is the most abundant natural biopolymer and changes to NCC by several chemical and mechanical methods. In this review, we mainly focus on the methods for production of NCC, physicochemical properties and medical applications of NCC (e.g. regenerative medicine, replacement of vascular grafts, tissue engineering, anti-bacterial/anti-viral applications, diagnosis and biosensing) with a special emphasize on drug delivery systems.

A 61-year-old man with dilated cardiomyopathy presented with progressive biventricular decompensation. Two years before admission, the patient had a dual-chamber pacemaker implanted in another hospital because of “sick-sinus-syndrome.” Physical examination showed a heart rate of 110 bpm, with a blood pressure of 150/100 mm Hg, inspiratory crepitant rales over both lung fields, and moderate jugular venous distension. Additional findings included a mitral insufficiency murmur and a tender enlarged liver. The 12-lead ECG showed atrial flutter with negative p-waves in II, III, and aVF (cycle length 270 ms), with 2:1-AV-conduction and wide QRS-complex (165 ms) with left-bundle-branch-block-morphology (Figure 1). An echocardiogram demonstrated that the left ventricle was markedly dilated (72.5 mm end-diastolic …

Hyaluronan (HA) is widely used in the clinical practice and in biomedical research.

Polysaccharides and carbohydrate polymers are extensively studied for their potential in drug delivery systems. These biomaterials can be tailored to control the release rate of medications, offering significant advantages in therapeutic applications. Moreover, polysaccharides and carbohydrate polymers hold substantial promise in tissue engineering, with ongoing research focusing on enhancing their properties and developing novel applications to support tissue regeneration and repair. In addition to medical uses, polysaccharides and carbohydrate-based polymers play a crucial role in environmental applications. Their remarkable ability to adsorb large quantities of dyes, heavy metals and other pollutants makes them effective in wastewater treatment. Polysaccharides such as chitosan, cellulose and alginate are particularly well-suited for this purpose. Similarly, natural polysaccharides such as starch and guar gum serve as flocculants, promoting the aggregation of suspended particles in water, which can then be removed through sedimentation or filtration. These materials can also bind to heavy metals and other contaminants in soil, reducing their mobility and bioavailability. This immobilization process prevents pollutants from entering the food chain, thereby mitigating environmental risks. This review highlights the significant role of polysaccharides and carbohydrate polymers in advancing drug delivery systems, tissue engineering and a wide range of industrial and environmental applications. © 2026 Society of Chemical Industry.

The versatile natural polymer, collagen, has gained vast attention in biomedicine. Due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability, weak antigenicity, biomimetics and well-known safety profile, it is widely used as a drug, protein and gene carrier, and as a scaffold matrix in tissue engineering. Nanoparticles develop favorable chemical and physical properties such as increased drug half-life, improved hydrophobic drug solubility and controlled and targeted drug release. Their reduced toxicity, controllable characteristics of scaffolds and stimuli-responsive behavior make them suitable in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Collagen associates and absorbs nanoparticles leading to significant impacts on their biological functioning in any biofluid. This review will discuss collagen nanoparticle preparation methods and their applications and developments in drug delivery systems and tissue engineering.

Editorial: Tissue Engineering: Perspectives, Challenges, and Future Directions

Cardiovascular Disease is the number one cause of death in the world, with a mortality rate, globally of 35.1% representing 17.6 million lives lost annually. The majority of these deaths are related to vascular diseases, such as atherosclerotic plaques, which can obstruct blood flow perfusion of organs and tissue causing serious injuries or even death. In the heart, in order to prevent heart failure, blood flow to the tissue must be restored as quickly as possible, ideally via minimally invasive interventions such as stenting or other types of angioplasty as the gold standard. However, this is not always suitable, thus, blood vessel bypass grafts may be required. Tissue-engineered vascular grafts has being aimed as a product that has the capacity to be repopulated with the patient’s own cells to reduce immunogenicity and increase graft patency. A particular importance of tissue-engineered vascular grafts using degradable biopolymers is for clinical paediatric cardiothoracic surgeries. This thesis uses porcine carotid decellularized arteries as degradable biopolymer scaffolds. Currently, although significant progress has occurred, recellularisation process is not optimised due to the complex structure of the artery wall or for issues related to the biochemical and physicochemical cues from the arterial vessel surface that can lead to thrombus and stenosis formation. Tissue engineering is a highly multidisciplinary field that combines a number of areas of science and engineering to study new possibilities for repairing and regenerating tissues and organs. This thesis is focused on current essential requirements as well as some strategies for future developments of tissue-engineered blood vessels, involving tissue engineering and nanomedicine. Chapter 2 is devoted exclusively to tissue engineering. The studies were performed to overcome the barrier posed by the dense/layered architecture of porcine carotid decellularized arteries thus improving tunica media repopulation, using a cost effective microneedle-based device developed to modify the physical structure in a minimally invasive manner. This was achieved by creating radial microchannels, which enhanced the radial cellular repopulation while preserving the biomechanical properties and the extracellular matrix integrity. Moreover, repopulation by assessing two different seeding methods, injection technique and cell seeding bioreactor were carried out and presented successful radial tunica media repopulation. Chapter 3 relates to nanotechnology, where a thermal stimulus-responsive hybrid magnetic-nanomedicine with theranostic potential for biomedical applications from cancer therapy to tissue engineering were developed, by synthesising and engineering superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles and thermosensitive phospholipid bilayers. Chapter 4 merged nanomedicines and tissue engineering, encompassing the modification of the surface of the decellularized arteries with nanomedicines of modular design and with theranostic potential developed in chapter 3, thus initiating a new generation of tissue-engineered vascular grafts, that could potentially be studied to enrich the grafts balancing of microenvironmental cues to promote optimal immunomodulation, wound healing and tissue formation/remodelling with the delivery of chemical and biological agents. In summary, this PhD thesis has led to the development of new strategies to aid progress in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, such as 3D ECM-derived scaffolds with potential controlled and triggerable release of cargos and theranostics.

Chitosan scaffolds: Expanding horizons in biomedical applications