Multicomponent Hybrid Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Multicomponent hybrid hydrogels are pharmaceutical systems that comprise at least two different types of polymers. Their development responds to the need for improving the existing delivery systems and/or mimicking the characteristics of specific tissues or organs expanding the biomedical applications of hydrogels. Their versatile composition and properties make multicomponent hybrid hydrogels very attractive platforms as scaffolds in bone, cartilage, neural, heart and skin regeneration and excellent alternatives for drug loading and release. Thus, this chapter mainly addresses the usefulness of multicomponent hybrid hydrogels in tissue engineering and drug delivery. The most common combinations of polymers for these two purposes are discussed, as well as the limitations of employing conventional approaches for the development of these complex hydrogels. Artificial intelligence techniques emerge as powerful tools to understand more quickly and easily how ingredients affect the final hydrogel properties, generating the knowledge needed to develop advanced pharmaceutical systems with huge potential in tissue engineering and drug delivery.