Smart biomaterials in healthcare: Breakthroughs in tissue engineering, immunomodulation, patient-specific therapies, and biosensor applications

Smart biomaterials have significantly impacted human healthcare by advancing the development of medical devices designed to function within human tissue, mimicking the behavior of natural tissues. While the intelligence of biomaterials has evolved from inert to active over the past few decades, smart biomaterials take this a step further by making their surfaces or bulk respond based on interactions with surrounding tissues, imparting outcomes similar to natural tissue functions. This interaction with the surrounding tissue helps in creating stimuli-responsive biomaterials, which can be useful in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, autonomous drug delivery, orthopedics, and much more. Traditionally, material engineering focused on refining the static properties of biomaterials to accommodate them within the body without evoking an immune response, which was a major obstacle to their unrestricted operation. This review highlights and explains various engineering approaches currently under research for developing stimuli-responsive biomaterials that tune their outcomes based on responses to bodily factors like temperature, pH, and ion concentration or external factors like magnetism, light, and conductivity. Applications in soft and hard tissue engineering, 4D printing, and scaffold design are also discussed. The advanced application of microfluidics, like organ-on-a-chip models, extensively benefits from the intrinsic smart properties of biomaterials, which are also discussed below. The review further elaborates on how smart biomaterial engineering could revolutionize biosensor applications, thereby improving patient care quality. We delineate the limitations and key challenges associated with biomaterials, providing insights into the path forward and outlining future directions for developing next-generation biomaterials that will facilitate clinical translation.

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Publication Details

Journal
Applied Physics Reviews
Published
2025-03-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0238817
Citations
21
Primary Topic
3D Printing in Biomedical Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
14.16
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article

Smart biomaterials in healthcare: Breakthroughs in tissue engineering, immunomodulation, patient-specific therapies, and biosensor applications

Ketul C. Popat, Danial Khorsandi, Alireza Hassani Najafabadi, Rondinelli Donizetti Herculano et al.
21 citations
Applied Physics Reviews
3D Printing in Biomedical Research
14.16
article

Smart biomaterials in healthcare: Breakthroughs in tissue engineering, immunomodulation, patient-specific therapies, and biosensor applications

Ketul C. Popat, Danial Khorsandi, Alireza Hassani Najafabadi, Rondinelli Donizetti Herculano, Rajesh Vasita, Swarup Biswas, Ankit Gangrade, Negar Hosseinzadeh Kouchehbaghi, Geetha Manivasagam, Ansheed Raheem, A. Joseph Nathanael, Pearlin Amaan Khan, Marvin Mecwan, Anjaneyulu Udduttula, Amir Ahari, Surjendu Maity, Fatemeh Zehtabi, Kalpana Mandal, Neda Farhadi, Mehmet R. Dokmeci, Reihaneh Haghniaz, Johnson V. John, Yangzhi Zhu, Hyeok Kim, Saurabh Sharma
article en
21 citations

Abstract

Smart biomaterials have significantly impacted human healthcare by advancing the development of medical devices designed to function within human tissue, mimicking the behavior of natural tissues. While the intelligence of biomaterials has evolved from inert to active over the past few decades, smart biomaterials take this a step further by making their surfaces or bulk respond based on interactions with surrounding tissues, imparting outcomes similar to natural tissue functions. This interaction with the surrounding tissue helps in creating stimuli-responsive biomaterials, which can be useful in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, autonomous drug delivery, orthopedics, and much more. Traditionally, material engineering focused on refining the static properties of biomaterials to accommodate them within the body without evoking an immune response, which was a major obstacle to their unrestricted operation. This review highlights and explains various engineering approaches currently under research for developing stimuli-responsive biomaterials that tune their outcomes based on responses to bodily factors like temperature, pH, and ion concentration or external factors like magnetism, light, and conductivity. Applications in soft and hard tissue engineering, 4D printing, and scaffold design are also discussed. The advanced application of microfluidics, like organ-on-a-chip models, extensively benefits from the intrinsic smart properties of biomaterials, which are also discussed below. The review further elaborates on how smart biomaterial engineering could revolutionize biosensor applications, thereby improving patient care quality. We delineate the limitations and key challenges associated with biomaterials, providing insights into the path forward and outlining future directions for developing next-generation biomaterials that will facilitate clinical translation.

Applied Physics ReviewsVol. 12(1)
University of Seoul (KR), California State University, Northridge (US), Amirkabir University of Technology (IR), George Mason University (US), Duke University (US), University of Colorado Boulder (US), Terasaki Foundation (US), Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté (FR), Molecular Theranostics (United States) (US), Vellore Institute of Technology University (IN), Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) (BR), Central University of Gujarat (IN), Stanford University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
3D Printing in Biomedical Research
14.16
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