Med Lasers.  2020 Jun;9(1):6-11. 10.25289/ML.2020.9.1.6.

Photoresponsive Hydrogels as Drug Delivery Systems

• Abueva CD
• Chung PS
• Ryu HS
• Park SY
• Woo SH

• KMID: 2533459
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.25289/ML.2020.9.1.6

Abstract

Hydrogels have been developed and used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to deliver therapeutics to injured or diseased tissue because of their versatility and properties that can be tailored to match the natural extracellular matrix. Hydrogels can be made with a variety of physical and chemical properties combined with light responsiveness ideal for applications in different fields of medicine that require the spatiotemporal control of therapeutics. Light, as a stimulus, is relatively inexpensive, contact-free, noninvasive with high spatial resolution and temporal control, convenient and easy to use, and allows deep tissue penetration that is relatively harmless. Photoresponsive hydrogels are ideal candidates for on-demand drug delivery systems that are capable of sustained and controlled drug release, minimizing the side effects, and ensuring the activity and efficient delivery of drugs to the target tissue.

Keyword

Light; Laser; Photoresponsive; Hydrogel; Drug delivery