👋 How’s your day going?

We're almost closing the first quarter of 2023. How has hydrogel research progressed in this time? In this email, I'll bring your attention to five review articles published this year.

1/ Wound management with bio-adhesives

Healing wounds is a multi-stage biological process. Hydrogels are excellent candidates for wound management because it has similar microstructure to human tissue. Certain hydrogel chemistries have also been shown to be biocompatible. This review article focuses on polysaccharide-based hydrogels and their design criteria in order to become suitable bio-adhesives.

2/ Flexible supercapacitors for wearable electronics

Supercapacitors are used to power wearable electronics, but most applications require flexible substrates. Hydrogels being soft materials present the possibility of fabricating flexible supercapacitors. This review article discusses the development of electroconductive hydrogels for supercapacitor applications. High electrical conductivity, ultrahigh stretchability, strong self-healability, low-temperature tolerance, and excellent mechanical properties, make these hydrogels ideal.

3/ Moisturizer to hydrogels

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is commonly found in moisturizers and plays many physiological functions in our body. Recent developments enabled crosslinking of HA into hydrogels for new applications. However, HA-based hydrogels remain mechanically weak and susceptible to biodegradation. This review article covers novel crosslinking strategies along with reactive molecules or moieties to further development of novel HA-based hydrogels biomedical fields.

4/ Post-op recovery

Post-op adhesion is a medical problem where the surfaces in the cavity stick together after surgery. One potential solution is to introduce a sponge-like drug carrier that can be triggered to prevent adhesion while preventing infections. This review article discusses hydrogels as anti-adhesion barriers and how it could prevent post-op adhesion.

5/ Microfluidics and hydrogel lab-on-chip

Lab-on-chip are miniaturized diagnostic devices that can be easily deployed in less accessible places. These devices often require small, selective, and tunable flow channels. One potential material for this is stimuli-sensitive hydrogels. This review article analyzes the five essential design parameters for hydrogel-based valves.

Hope that these five articles would spark your interest in hydrogels in 2023. Which of these five interested you the most? Hit reply to this email and let me know!

Be great,

Ming Jun Lee