Self-healing injectable hydrogels: an emerging class of novel biomaterials

Researchers from Radboudumc and Harvard University have jointly published a review article on self-healing injectable hydrogels in Chemical Reviews. This work was led by Pascal Bertsch and Sander Leeuwenburgh at Radboudumc (Theme Reconstructive & Regenerative Medicine, Department of Dentistry), in collaboration with Harvard’s researchers David Mooney as well as Mani Diba who recently re-joined Radboudumc as Hypatia tenure track fellow.

Self-healing injectable hydrogels offer many advantages over traditional biomaterials, most notably the possibility for minimally invasive injection, moldability into patient specific tissue defects, and high spatiotemporal control of encapsulated cells and therapeutics. Consequently, self-healing injectable hydrogels have been at the forefront of many emerging strategies for tissue regeneration during the past decade, e.g. to provide mechanical support after heart attack, deliver drugs or excitable particles directly into tumors, or as immunoengineering platforms that can recruit and trigger immune cells in situ. Bertsch et al. a critical perspective on the promise of self-healing injectable biomaterials for various therapeutic applications. In addition, they identified several bottlenecks that currently impede the translation of self-healing injectable hydrogels and provide guidelines how these limitations may be overcome in the near future.

Publication

Bertsch P, Diba M, Mooney DJ, Leeuwenburgh SCG. Self-Healing Injectable Hydrogels for Tissue Regeneration. Chem Rev. 2022 Aug 5. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.2c00179. Online ahead of print. PMID: 35930422