Protein Gels: Advances and Prospects

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to submit your work to this Special Issue, titled “Protein Gels: Advances and Prospects”.

Protein gels are versatile soft materials formed through the controlled unfolding and assembly of proteins into three-dimensional networks capable of retaining water and other components. In the food industry, gels derived from whey, soy, egg, or gelatin enhance texture and stability and also act as encapsulation and delivery matrices for bioactive compounds. In biomedical applications, proteins that mimic the native extracellular matrix, such as collagen, gelatin, silk fibroin, or engineered variants able to integrate diverse functionalities, form biocompatible gel scaffolds suitable for tissue engineering, drug delivery, and cell support. The mechanical and functional characteristics of these gels can be finely adjusted through enzymatic cross-linking or incorporation of bioactive molecules to suit diverse applications.

Protein gels formed from amyloid-like fibrils are rapidly emerging as a distinctive class of functional soft materials, offering highly ordered nanoscale structures and tunable interactions with a broad range of functional compounds (polysaccharides, polyphenols, metal ions, and inorganic nanoparticles), extending their utility in both nutritional and medical contexts.

Advanced preparation techniques such as 3D printing and microfluidic structuring offer precise control over the properties of protein gel architectures, while conventional characterization techniques such as mechanical testing, microscopy, calorimetry, and spectroscopy showcase the versatility of protein-based gels to meet complex functional demands.

This Special Issue, “Protein Gels: Advances and Prospects”, welcomes high-quality contributions describing recent advances in the design, characterization, and applications of protein gels in biomedicine, food science, materials engineering, biotechnology, environmental science, and beyond. We warmly invite researchers specialized in these fields to submit their latest work.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Design, formation, and characterization of protein gels;
• Advanced fabrication approaches, including supramolecular assembly, microfluidic structuring, and 3D printing;
• Interactions between protein fibrillar networks and chemical compounds;
• Applications in food structuring, drug delivery, biosensing, and regenerative materials.

As Guest Editors, we would be delighted to receive your research papers or reviews contributing to this dynamic and expanding field.

Dr. Iulia Matei
Dr. Aurica Precupas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.