Huixu Xie

An ultrasound-responsive lipoic acid-based hydrogel enables in situ gelation, wet adhesion, and oral mucosal wound repair.

In the clinic, various kinds of diseases that derived not only from exogenous, such as bone fracture, skin wound, and brain injury, but also from endogenous, e.g., tumors, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular pathological changes including stenosis, infarction, and hemorrhage, are all in urgent need of biomaterials to improve their function restoration. Traditionally, clinic-oriented biomaterials focus on their therapy functions for specific diseases. However, most developed ones are non-friendly for clinical use, such as difficulties in handling. Moreover, new therapy modes like minimally invasive surgery are demanding biomaterials with multiple functions to satisfy the clinical requirements. For example, biomedical hydrogels can be prepared by rational design of appropriate components, chemistry, and structure to realize multiple functions such as injectable, self-healing, adhesion, and stimuli-response. Thus, the design and fabrication of multifunctional biomaterials that are capable of better meeting the needs in the clinics are worthy of further exploration by researchers.Although great success has been achieved in the development of various biomaterials, there are only a few products that can meet the requirements in clinical applications. And thus, this research topic aims to attract the attention of more researchers and spread their latest progress on clinic-oriented multifunctional biomaterials, which are expected to integrate the necessary demands, ranging from dis...

The destruction of periodontal tissue is a crucial problem faced by oral diseases, such as periodontitis and tooth avulsion. However, regenerating periodontal tissue is a huge clinical challenge because of the structural complexity and the poor self-healing capability of periodontal tissue. Tissue engineering has led to advances in periodontal regeneration, however, the source of exogenous seed cells is still a major obstacle. With the improvement of in situ tissue engineering and the exploration of stem cell niches, the homing of endogenous stem cells may bring promising treatment strategies in the future. In recent years, the applications of endogenous cell homing have been widely reported in clinical tissue repair, periodontal regeneration, and cell therapy prospects. Stimulating strategies have also been widely studied, such as the combination of cytokines and chemokines, and the implantation of tissue-engineered scaffolds. In the future, more research needs to be done to improve the efficiency of endogenous cell homing and expand the range of clinical applications.

Bioinspired and biosafety antioxidant nanoparticle assemblies from natural occurring molecules have been regarded as a class of effective therapeutic nanomaterials for addressing current inflammatory diseases such as acute kidney injury. In this study, a series of epicatechin-assembled nanoparticles have been developed via one-pot enzymatic polymerization of epicatechin. The prepared poly (epicatechin) (PEC) nanoparticles (NPs) showed excellent antioxidant capacity to scavenge multiple toxic free radicals, thus being able to effectively protect cells under oxidative stress conditions in vitro. Furthermore, in the renal ischemia/reperfusion model, blood renal function testing and renal tissue staining revealed a prominent therapeutic effect of PEC NPs. All these findings suggested that this class of bioinspired antioxidant nanoparticles provided a new therapeutic strategy for human ischemia/reperfusion-related diseases.

The management of oral and maxillofacial tissue defects caused by tumors, trauma, and congenital or acquired deformities has been a major challenge for surgeons over the last few decades. Autologous tissue transplantation, the gold standard of tissue reconstruction, is a valid method for repairing the oral and maxillofacial functions and aesthetics. However, several limitations hinder its clinical applications including complications of donor sites, limited tissue volume, and uncertain long-term outcomes. Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) widely exist in adipose tissue and can be easily obtained through liposuction. Like the bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs), ADMSCs also have the multi-pluripotent potencies to differentiate into osteoblasts, chondrocytes, neurons, and myocytes. Therefore, the multilineage capacity of ADMSCs makes them valuable for cell-based medical therapies. In recent years, researchers have developed many candidates of ADMSCs-based biomaterial scaffolds to cater for the needs of oral and maxillofacial tissue engineering due to their superior performance. This review presents the advances and applications of ADMSCs-based biomaterial scaffolds, and explores their tissue engineering prospects in oral and maxillofacial reconstructions.