Title:Hydrogels: A Journey from Diapers to Gene Delivery
VOLUME: 14 ISSUE: 2
Author(s):Pooja Chawla, Alok Ranjan Srivastava, Priyanka Pandey and Viney Chawla
Affiliation:Faculty of Pharmacy, Babu Banarasi Das National Institute of Technology and Management, Sector-1, Dr. Akhilesh Das Nagar, Faizabad Road, Chinhut, Lucknow-226028, U.P. India.
Keywords:Biomaterials, Dental Adhesives, Diet aid, Gastric Retention, Hydrogels, Intelligent Gels, Smart Gels, Tissue Engineering.
Abstract:Hydrogels are the biomaterials comprising network of natural or synthetic polymers capable of absorbing large
amount of water. Hydrogels are “Smart Gels” or “Intelligent Gels” which can be made to respond to the various
environmental conditions like temperature, pH, magnetic/electric field, ionic strength, inflammation, external stress etc.
There are numerous potential applications of hydrogels in modern day life ranging from a diaper to gene delivery. This
review succinctly describes the classification, properties and preparation methods along with numerous diverse
applications of hydrogels like agricultural hydrogels, hydrogel for drug delivery, sensing, dental adhesives, wound healing
and tissue regeneration, diet aid and gastric retention and in tissue engineering etc. Hydrogels can be regarded as highly
valuable biomaterials for human-beings.
