Polymeric microgels for bone tissue engineering applications - a review

Microgels have recently gained exposure as a potential scaffold either alone or in combination with other scaffold for bone tissue engineering. Microgel has been defined as a small size particle of cross linked polymer chains with the ability of swelling and holding the large amount of solvent. This review summarizes the microgel based scaffolds specifically for bone tissue engineering. Microgels for growth factor delivery, cell transplantation and hybrid scaffold synthesis have been discussed in details. The success in recreating potential bone regenerative scaffold have been explored for clinical applications, future perspectives and its concurrent view has been deliberated in detail.