Applications of smart polymer hydrogels

The versatility and potential of smart hydrogel systems make them one of the most exciting interfaces of chemistry and biology systems for various biomedical applications. This section of the chapter focuses on the various applications of smart polymer hydrogels in the field of tissue engineering, drug delivery, gene delivery and protein delivery. 

Tissue engineering aims at the replacement of damaged or diseased tissues or organs to enable the body to develop or regenerate new functional tissue. This is usually achieved through constructs containing living cells, a three- 

As an alternative, Pluronic F127 has also been modified with maleim-ide groups followed by subsequent reaction with the tripeptide Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) containing peptides. The peptide-modified, thermo-responsive hydrogels were hydrolytically stable and presented an attractive material 

19 Hydrolysis of triethoxysilane end-capped pluronics (a) and subsequent condensation (b). 

Hybrid hydrogels based on chitosan and Pluronics have also shown thermo-responsive properties and exhibited superior hemostatic properties (Chung et al, 2005). Microfluidics were used by Wei et al (2011) to prepare pH-responsive microcapsules based on PDMAEMA. The cationic microcapsules obtained exhibited pH-sensitivity, and the preparation conditions significantly affected their pH-responsive swelling. 

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