Hydrogels for Therapeutic Delivery: Current Developments and Future Directions

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to contribute a manuscript to a Special Issue of Gels entitled “Hydrogels for Therapeutic Delivery: Current Developments and Future Directions”. For this Special Issue, both research and review manuscript submissions are welcome for submission.

The delivery of therapeutic agents has witnessed remarkable advancements in recent years, with hydrogels emerging as an intriguing biomaterial. Hydrogels are smart, environmentally sensitive versatile platforms that offer high water content, biocompatibility and the capacity to protect drugs from degradation.

They are three-dimensional polymeric networks capable of retaining large amounts of water, allowing for effective solubilization of encapsulated hydrophobic drugs. Their biocompatibility ensures minimal toxicity, while they can be designed to be degradable and responsive to specific stimuli that allow controlled release of therapeutic agents.

In addition, hydrogels are very attractive materials for clinical drug-delivery applications since they can be prepared in various physical forms such as nanoparticles, coatings, fibers or films. Therapeutically active agents encapsulated and delivered in nanoforms have notable advantages over the traditional forms since dosages can be significantly reduced.

In this Special Issue, advances in the design of hydrogels as drug delivery systems will be presented, focusing on hydrogel–drug interactions and mechanisms that trigger controlled release and targeted delivery for clinical applications.

In addition, this Special Issue will explore artificial intelligence (AI)-driven approaches for the design of hydrogel-based drug delivery systems. AI has recently emerged as an extraordinary tool to enhance drug encapsulation efficiency and optimize the precision of drug release; hence, the latest advancements, challenges and future applications will be presented.   

This Special Issue aims to provide readers with an overview of recent trends in hydrogel delivery systems and future prospects, in light of the need to accelerate the transformation of laboratory research to clinical application.

Dr. Georgia Kythreoti
Dr. Michael Arkas
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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 2600 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.

• natural polymers
• synthetic polymers
• biodegradability
• controlled release
• drug targeted delivery
• AI and nanotechnology
• clinical applications