Alginate is a natural polysaccharide exhibiting excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, having many different applications in the field of biomedicine. Alginate is readily processable for applicable three-dimensional scaffolding materials such as hydrogels, microspheres, microcapsules, sponges, foams and fibers. Alginate-based biomaterials can be utilized as drug delivery systems and cell carriers for tissue engineering. Alginate can be easily modified via chemical and physical reactions to obtain derivatives having various structures, properties, functions and applications. Tuning the structure and properties such as biodegradability, mechanical strength, gelation property and cell affinity can be achieved through combination with other biomaterials, immobilization of specific ligands such as peptide and sugar molecules, and physical or chemical crosslinking. This review focuses on recent advances in the use of alginate and its derivatives in the field of biomedical applications, including wound healing, cartilage repair, bone regeneration and drug delivery, which have potential in tissue regeneration applications.

No abstract

A biological hydrogel was self-assembled via Watson-Crick base pairing of thymine and adenine from functionalized star poly(ethylene glycol). Our work should provide a novel methodology to generate robust injectable scaffolds with tailorable properties for biomedical applications.

Injectable hybrid hydrogels were produced by mixing crosslinked aldehyde hyaluronic acid with dexamethasone grafted water soluble chitosan, without the addition of a chemical crosslinking agent. The gelation is attributed to the Schiff‐base reaction between amino and aldehyde groups of hydrogel precursors. In this article, the water soluble chitosan, N‐succinyl‐chitosan, grafted with dexamethasone via water soluble carbodiimide chemistry has been characterized. In vitro gelation time, morphologies, swelling, weight loss, and compressive modulus of hybrid hydrogels in phosphate buffered saline were studied. The dexamethasone grafted hydrogel showed a slightly lower gelation time, higher water uptake and faster weight loss compared to the hydrogel without dexamethasone. Human adipose‐derived stem cells were encapsulated into the dexamethasone grafted hydrogel in vitro to assess the biological performance and applicability of the hydrogel as cell carrier. Results demonstrated that the dexamethasone grafted hydrogel resulted in enhanced cell adhesion and proliferation as compared to the hydrogel without dexamethasone. These characteristics provide a potential opportunity for the dexamethasone grafted hybrid hydrogel as an injectable scaffold in adipose tissue engineering applications. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013