Given their durability and long‐term stability, self‐healable hydrogels have, in the past few years, emerged as promising replacements for the many brittle hydrogels currently being used in preclinical or clinical trials. To this end, the incompatibility between hydrogel toughness and rapid self‐healing remains unaddressed, and therefore most of the self‐healable hydrogels still face serious challenges within the dynamic and mechanically demanding environment of human organs/tissues. Furthermore, depending on the target tissue, the self‐healing hydrogels must comply with a wide range of properties including electrical, biological, and mechanical. Notably, the incorporation of nanomaterials into double‐network hydrogels is showing great promise as a feasible way to generate self‐healable hydrogels with the above‐mentioned attributes. Here, the recent progress in the development of multifunctional and self‐healable hydrogels for various tissue engineering applications is discussed in detail. Their potential applications within the rapidly expanding areas of bioelectronic hydrogels, cyborganics, and soft robotics are further highlighted.

Generation of reactive oxygen species, delayed blood clotting, prolonged inflammation, bacterial infection, and slow cell proliferation are the main challenges of effective wound repair. Herein, a multifunctional extracellular matrix‐mimicking hydrogel is fabricated through abundant hydrogen bonding among the functional groups of gelatin and tannic acid (TA) as a green chemistry approach. The hydrogel shows adjustable physicochemical properties by altering the concentration of TA and it represents high safety features both in vitro and in vivo on fibroblasts, red blood cells, and mice organs. In addition to the merit of facile encapsulation of cell proliferation‐inducing hydrophilic drugs, accelerated healing of skin injury is obtained through pH‐dependent release of TA and its multifaceted mechanisms as an antibacterial, antioxidant, hemostatic, and anti‐inflammatory moiety. The developed gelatin‐TA (GelTA) hydrogel also shows an outstanding effect on the formation of extracellular matrix and wound closure in vivo via offered cell adhesion sites in the backbone of gelatin that provide increased re‐epithelialization and better collagen deposition. These results suggest that the multifunctional GelTA hydrogel is a promising candidate for the clinical treatment of full‐thickness wounds and further development of wound dressing materials that releases active agents in the neutral or slightly basic environment of infected nonhealing wounds.

At the crossroads of chemistry, electronics, mechanical engineering, polymer science, biology, tissue engineering, computer science, and materials science, electrical devices are currently being engineered that blend directly within organs and tissues. These sophisticated devices are mediators, recorders, and stimulators of electricity with the capacity to monitor important electrophysiological events, replace disabled body parts, or even stimulate tissues to overcome their current limitations. They are therefore capable of leading humanity forward into the age of cyborgs, a time in which human biology can be hacked at will to yield beings with abilities beyond their natural capabilities. The resulting advances have been made possible by the emergence of conformal and soft electronic materials that can readily integrate with the curvilinear, dynamic, delicate, and flexible human body. This article discusses the recent rapid pace of development in the field of cybernetics with special emphasis on the important role that flexible and electrically active materials have played therein.

Biomaterials capable of transmitting signals over longer distances than those in rigid electronics can open new opportunities for humanity by mimicking the way tissues propagate information. For seamless mirroring of the human body, they also have to display conformability to its curvilinear architecture, as well as, reproducing native‐like mechanical and electrical properties combined with the ability to self‐heal on demand like native organs and tissues. Along these lines, a multifunctional composite is developed by mixing silk fibroin and reduced graphene oxide. The material is coined “CareGum” and capitalizes on a phenolic glue to facilitate sacrificial and hierarchical hydrogen bonds. The hierarchal bonding scheme gives rise to high mechanical toughness, record‐breaking elongation capacity of ≈25 000%, excellent conformability to arbitrary and complex surfaces, 3D printability, a tenfold increase in electrical conductivity, and a fourfold increase in Young's modulus compared to its pristine counterpart. By taking advantage of these unique properties, a durable and self‐healing bionic glove is developed for hand gesture sensing and sign translation. Indeed, CareGum is a new advanced material with promising applications in fields like cyborganics, bionics, soft robotics, human–machine interfaces, 3D‐printed electronics, and flexible bioelectronics.

Chemically synthesized copper nanoclusters show colour-tunable emission and can be applied in catalysis, sensing, bioimaging, theranostics, and optoelectronics.