Biomedical Applications of Adhesive Hydrogels

Adhesive hydrogels represent a versatile class of soft biomaterials that integrate the water‐rich, tissue‐like properties of conventional hydrogels with robust interfacial bonding to biological substrates. By combining biocompatible polymers with adhesive motifs—often inspired by marine mussel chemistry—these materials achieve intimate contact with wet tissues, enabling applications in haemostasis, wound closure, drug delivery and tissue engineering. Beyond simple adhesion, many designs offer injectability, self‐healing and stimuli‐responsive performance, allowing conformal coverage of irregular defects, adaptation to mechanical loading and controlled release of therapeutics. Advances in polysaccharide, protein and synthetic polymer functionalisation have yielded hydrogels that promote rapid blood clotting, modulate local immune responses and support cell proliferation. The global significance of these developments lies in their potential to reduce invasive procedures, accelerate healing and provide on‐demand therapeutic action in a range of clinical settings from surgical sealants to wearable biosensors.

Research from Nature Portfolio

No recent Nature Portfolio content available.

Biomedical Applications of Adhesive Hydrogels publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in biomedical applications of adhesive hydrogels across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Hydrogel: A three-dimensional polymer network capable of absorbing and retaining large volumes of water while maintaining structural integrity.

Catechol: A dihydroxybenzene functional group that mimics mussel adhesive proteins, enabling strong, reversible bonding to wet surfaces.

Self-healing: The ability of a material to autonomously repair mechanical damage through dynamic bonds or reversible crosslinks.

Shear-thinning: A rheological behaviour where a material’s viscosity decreases under applied shear stress, facilitating injection and conformal spreading.

Macrophage polarization: The process by which macrophages adopt pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory phenotypes in response to biomaterial cues.

References

1. Mussel‐mimetic polysaccharide‐based injectable hydrogels for biomedical applications. BMEMat (2024).
2. Interpenetrating gallol functionalized tissue adhesive hyaluronic acid hydrogel polarizes macrophages to an immunosuppressive phenotype. Acta Biomaterialia (2022).
3. Gelatin and catechol-modified quaternary chitosan cotton dressings with rapid hemostasis and high-efficiency antimicrobial capacity to manage severe bleeding wounds. Materials & Design (2023).