Research progress of hydrogel-mediated disease therapeutics

The hydrogel is the three-dimensional polymer net that has been widely investigated for wound healing, tissue engineering, and drug-delivering system. This can support cell attachment and proliferation, mimic nature tissues, and control drug sustained release in the lesion sites. However, a natural polymer-based hydrogel is easily susceptible to mechanical disruption and lack of injectable property, which makes it encounter many drawbacks, including invasive implantation and unsatisfactory structural and causing drugs leaking during frequent stress. Recent advances in hydrogel exploit have overcome intrinsic low toughness and strength and opened the door for widespread use in all fields. The ideal hydrogel should meet the following features: good biocompatibility and biodegradability, promoting tissue regeneration, self-healing properties, non-immunogenicity, and on-demand drug release in lesion sites. The development of hydrogel opened a new window for disease therapeutics. This article will summarize hydrogel itself and it as the ideal drug delivery system for various disease treatments. We also highlighted hydrogel development in the biomedical field to fabricate environment-responsive hydrogel to release on-demand dose and reduce unnecessary side effects on surrounding tissues.