Emerging applications of stimuli-responsive polymers in pharmaceutical and biomedical field

Abstract

Stimuli-responsive, smart, or intelligent polymers are materials that significantly change their physical or chemical properties when there is a small change in the surrounding environment due to either internal or external stimuli. In the last two decades or so, there has been tremendous growth in the strategies to develop various types of stimuli-responsive polymer (SRP) materials/systems that are suitable for various fields, including biomedical, material science, nanotechnology, biotechnology, surface and colloid sciences, biochemistry, and the environmental field. The wide acceptability of SRPs is due to their availability in different architectural forms such as scaffolds, aggregates, hydrogels, pickering emulsions, core-shell particles, nanogels, micelles, membranes, capsules, and layer-by-layer films. The present review focuses on different types of SRPs, such as physical, chemical, and biological, and various important applications, including controlled drug delivery (CDD), stabilization of colloidal dispersion, diagnostics (sensors and imaging), tissue engineering, regenerative medicines, and actuators. The applications of SRPs have immense potential in various fields, and the author hopes these polymers will add a new field of applications through new concepts.