Novel self-healing hydrogels and their applications intissue engineering

The novel self-healing hydrogel is a typical intelligent and multi-functional biomedical material. It is of great significance to resolve the challenge of repairing damages in flexible biomaterials, which could facilitate intelligent activity and efficiency in biomaterials. The present paper reviews the design strategies and performance of recently developed self-healing hydrogels and their applications in tissue engineering, including transplantation of neural stem cells, repair of the central nervous system, bone regeneration, regeneration of cartilage-bone tissue complex, cardiac cell therapy, as well as hemostasis. Such advances and applications promote the innovative design and fabrication of intelligent multifunctional hydrogels and offer new opportunities to increase the diversity of flexible self-healing materials. Such a synthesis of research and applications lays a foundation for further development of intelligent hydrogels for tissue engineering and their application in the biomedical field.