Bioactive and Smart Materials in Medicine

Scope

The application of medical materials has brought great benefits to human disease diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and health care. The development of medical materials plays a very important role in improving human health and life expectancy. However, with the improvement of human life expectancy, namely, the aging of the population and the change of diet structure, the number of patients with chronic diseases has increased dramatically, and the diseases are becoming more complicated and individual differences, so the traditional biological inert medical materials are difficult to meet the needs of special applications. In this context, bioactive and smart materials emerge. Bioactive Materials is next-generation biomaterials that come into contact with cells, tissues or organs across all living species. Bioactive materials will feature adaptiveness to the biological environment, being designed to stimulate and/or direct appropriate cellular and tissue responses, or control interactions with microbiological species. Smart materials, also referred to intelligent or responsive materials, are designed materials with one or more properties that can be significantly changed in a controlled fashion by external stimuli, such as stress, temperature, moisture, pH, electric or magnetic fields, light, or chemical compounds. As an intelligent medical material, it can adapt to personalized application needs, and can reach beyond the traditional medical materials.

Given the above context, this special issue invites submissions broadly contributing to bioactive materials and/or smart materials in medicine. 

Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Bioactive metals and alloys
• Bioactive inorganics (ceramics, glasses and carbon-based materials)
• Bioactive polymers and gels
• Bioactive materials sourced from nature 
• Bioactive composites, for use in human or veterinary medicine as implants, tissue engineering scaffolds, cell/drug/gene carriers, imaging and sensing devices
• Catalytic Materials
• Chemoresponsive materials
• Chromogenic materials
• Dielectric elastomers
• Electroactive polymers
• Ferrofluid
• Halochromic materials
• Magnetocaloric materials
• Materials with controlled release
• Materials with controlled degradation
• Photomechanical materials
• Photovoltaic materials
• pH-sensitive materials
• Piezoelectric materials
• Polycaprolactone
• Self-healing materials
• Shape-memory materials
• Temperature-responsive materials
• Thermoelectric materials 

Guest Editors

Prof. Yufeng Zheng
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Peking University 

Prof. Jian Yang
Department of Biomedical Engineering Materials Research Institute, The Huck Institutes of The Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University

Prof. Ke Cheng
Department of Biomedical Engineering, UNC-Chapel Hill & NC State University

Prof. Donghui Zhu
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University

Prof. Zhilu Yang
Deputy Editor, Research
Affiliated Dongguan Hospital, Southern Medical University

Prof. Zhou Li
Beijng Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Submission Instructions

Please indicate in your cover letter that your submission is intended for inclusion in the special issue.

Submission Deadline: June 30, 2023

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