Hydrogels: Promising Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering
A special issue of Gels (ISSN 2310-2861). This special issue belongs to the section "Gel Chemistry and Physics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 14
Special Issue Editors
Interests: cancer biomaterials; bioengineering; implant design; surface modification; targeted drug delivery; tissue engineering; 3D printing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue focuses on the design, development, and application of hydrogels as innovative biomaterials for tissue engineering. Hydrogels, with their highly hydrated and tunable networks, closely mimic the native extracellular matrix (ECM), making them ideal scaffolds for promoting cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation. A major interest of this Issue is to explore how hydrogels can be engineered to modulate cellular behavior through mechanical and biochemical cues.
Recent advances in cellular mechanotransduction—where cells convert mechanical stimuli into biochemical signals—have underscored the importance of biomechanical environments in regulating embryonic development, tissue repair, and pathological processes such as fibrosis and cancer. Hydrogels offer a unique platform to recapitulate and manipulate mechanical cues like stiffness, shear stress, and viscoelasticity. However, the complex interactions between different mechanical factors and cellular signaling pathways remain incompletely understood.
This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, reviews, and perspectives on hydrogel-based systems that elucidate or exploit mechanotransduction mechanisms in tissue engineering applications. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, smart hydrogels responsive to mechanical stimuli, hydrogel platforms for 3D cell culture and organoid development, and hydrogel-mediated delivery of therapeutic agents targeting mechanosensitive pathways such as YAP/TAZ, and TRPV4. Contributions that bridge material science, cell biology, and clinical translation are particularly encouraged.
Prof. Dr. David Mills
Dr. Fabio Falleroni
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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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.
Keywords
- hydrogels
- tissue engineering
- mechanotransduction
- extracellular matrix
- biomaterials
- stem cell differentiation
- mechnical cues
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