Polysaccharide Hydrogels: Characterization and Biomedical Applications

Hydrogels are an emerging area of interest in medicine as well as in pharmaceutics and their physicochemical characterization is fundamental to their practical applications. They have been used to develop new pharmaceutical formulations and to improve tissue engineering applications. Hydrogels are three-dimensional, hydrophilic, polymeric networks, capable of imbibing large amounts of water or biological fluids. Compared with synthetic polymers, polysaccharides that are widely present in living organisms and come from renewable sources are extremely advantageous for hydrogel formation. Furthermore, polysaccharides are usually non-toxic, biocompatible, and show a number of peculiar physicochemical properties that make them suitable for a wide variety of biomedical applications.

This book bridges the gap between preparation of hydrogels, which is often discussed in books and reviews, and their characterization techniques. It aims to offer graduate students as well as researchers, including PhD students and those involved in R&D in pharmaceutical companies and academia, a valid support that can help them find appropriate keys to open the doors to the complex world of polysaccharide hydrogels. The first part of the book gives a wide overview of the most important approaches for the physicochemical characterization of hydrogels while the second one is mainly devoted to biomedical applications. Consequently, a significant peculiarity of this book is that, according to the specific needs of the reader, it can be approached in two ways: as a coherent whole to be read page after page or as separate sections. The overall structure of the book is a result of the fruitful collaboration of scientists from all over the world, and each section was written by outstanding authors who are experts in a specific aspect of this wide and multi-faceted discipline.