Tailoring Food Biopolymers into Biogels for Regenerative Wound Healing and Versatile Skin Bioelectronics

An increasing utilization of wound-related therapeutic materials and skin bioelectronics urges the development of multifunctional biogels for personal therapy and health management. Nevertheless, conventional dressings and skin bioelectronics with single function, mechanical mismatches, and impracticality severely limit their widespread applications in clinical. Herein, we explore a gelling mechanism, fabrication method, and functionalization for broadly applicable food biopolymers-based biogels that unite the challenging needs of elastic yet injectable wound dressing and skin bioelectronics in a single system. We combine our biogels with functional nanomaterials, such as cuttlefish ink nanoparticles and silver nanowires, to endow the biogels with reactive oxygen species scavenging capacity and electrical conductivity, and finally realized the improvement in diabetic wound microenvironment and the monitoring of electrophysiological signals on skin. This line of research work sheds light on preparing food biopolymers-based biogels with multifunctional integration of wound treatment and smart medical treatment.

Automated summary

In order to meet the needs of wound treatment and skin bioelectronics, we have developed a multifunctional biogel. By using food biopolymers as the base material and combining it with functional nanomaterials such as cuttlefish ink nanoparticles and silver nanowires, the biogel has the ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species and conduct electricity, thus improving the diabetic wound microenvironment and monitoring electrophysiological signals on the skin.