Volume 5 Issue 10, October 2021

Deep surgical wounds can be monitored via conductive multifilament surgical sutures incorporating ‘sensing pledgets’ bearing capacitive sensors operated via harmonic radiofrequency identification.

The surface topography of breast implants mediates the immune responses to them, and implants with an average roughness of 4 μm largely suppress foreign body response and fibrosis.

An adhesive paste designed to mimic some properties of barnacle glue haemostatically seals tissues robustly in less than 15 s, independently of the rate of blood coagulation.

The adsorption of coagulation factors on microspheres placed within extracorporeal blood-purification devices allows for transient blood thinning and faster recovery of haemostasis.

Injectable and electrically conductive scaffolds displaying shape-memory behaviour and a hierarchical porous structure enhance the functional repair of infarcted heart muscle in rats and minipigs.

Exosome-eluting stents implanted in rats after ischaemic injury accelerate vascular healing and promote tissue regeneration.

Brush-like biopolymers mimicking the lubrication properties of natural cartilage-binding complexes in articular joints enhance cartilage regeneration in a rat model of early osteoarthritis.

Protection of the endothelial glycocalyx in vascular allografts via the enzymatic ligation of immunosuppressive glycopolymers prevents allograft rejection after transplantation in the absence of systemic immunosuppression.

Multifilament surgical sutures functionalized with a conductive polymer and incorporating pledgets with capacitive sensors operated via radiofrequency identification can be used to monitor physicochemical states of deep surgical sites.

Cellular signalling networks in the microenvironment of implanted biomaterial scaffolds can be computationally reconstructed from single-cell RNA-sequencing data of cells collected from the implantation site.