Photo-responsive hydrogel-treated fabrics for smart drug delivery systems

Stimuli-responsive hydrogel-treated fabrics have received considerable attention as one of the most versatile drug delivery systems especially for site-specific and time-controlled delivery of bioactive agents. This is due to their combined hydrogel and fabrics characteristic with spatial and temporal control. Physically prepared stimuli-responsive hydrogel fabrics can offer an approach to encapsulate various types of drugs, particularly hydrophobic drugs and therapeutic molecules. Targeting and response, especially multiresponse of the nanogel-treated fabrics system for drug delivery, has become an important subject in research. The study of photo-responsive nanogels fabrics, upon light irradiation, focuses also on smart drug delivery systems. This chapter focuses on the formation of photo-responsive hydrogels and nanogels treated smart fabrics (physical and chemical cross-linked), and their release behaviour. Recent application of photo-responsive hydrogels treated fabrics, challenges and strategies to improve the impacts are also discussed.