**Preface to "Electrospun Nanofibers for Biomedical Applications"**

Nanomaterial-based substrates and devices offer opportunities to develop promising therapies to face the increasing incidence of cardiovascular, respiratory, musculoskeletal, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Nanofiber meshes have already been proposed as devices to be used in the treatment of many diseases, taking advantage of their specific properties. The versatility in their composition, the high specific surface area, the high porosity, and the interconnectivity of the porosity of electrospun nanofiber meshes allow exploring different biological functionalities. Additionally, drug delivery systems and tissue-engineered scaffolds have been developed to address specific needs of particular tissues and organs.

Electrospun nanofibrous meshes can physically mimic the native extracellular matrix of most connective tissues. However, they present three important drawbacks (i.e., limited thickness, pore size in the micrometer range, and mechanical properties more compatible to skin than to bone) which can hinder their use in biomedical applications, namely, in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Therefore, many efforts have been made to enhance the performance of electrospun nanofibrous meshes, ranging from morphological to compositional and biochemical cues.

Despite the many efforts to translate electrospun nanofibrous meshes into medical devices, only few have reached clinical practice. It is expected that in the near future, long-lasting and highly-effective solutions will be developed that are able to address relevant clinical needs, increasing the quality of life of millions of patients and reducing healthcare costs.

This Special Issue assembles a set of original and highly-innovative contributions showcasing advanced devices and therapies based on or involving electrospun meshes. It comprises 13 original research papers covering topics that span from biomaterial scaffolds structure and functionalization, nanocomposites, antibacterial nanofibrous systems, wound dressings, monitoring devices, electrical stimulation, bone tissue engineering to first in human clinical trials. This publication also includes 4 review papers focused on drug delivery and tissue engineering applications.

> **Albino Martins, Rui L. Reis, Nuno M. Neves** *Special Issue Editors*
