“…After long years of industrial applications, HGs have been widely studied because of their three-dimensional networks, non-solubility in water at a physiological temperature or pH, noticeable swellability in aqueous media, and porosity formed by physical (e.g., hydrogen bonds, entanglement of chains, ionic gelation, and van der Waals interactions) or chemical (simple monomers reaction -covalent bonds) cross-linking of molecules, as depicted in Figure 6. These characteristics allow water absorption and retention in the interstitial spaces between chains, which increase their volume and potentiate a multitude of different mechanical behaviours, making them an interesting and potentially intelligent (i.e., reactive to external stimuli) material to be used as controlled release systems of bioactive molecules (Amiriana et al, 2021;Pettinelli et al, 2020). Despite their highly hydrophilic nature, HGs allow the incorporation of hydrophobic compounds such as CUR, into the gel matrix, encapsulating and protecting those until they reach a specific target within the human body (e.g., mouth, stomach, liver, prostate, small intestine, and colon).…”